‘Just a tragedy’: Motorcyclist dies after hitting pothole

0:00Dave Roberts here. There you are surrounded by fans, sharing wings, sharing drinks, high-fiving random strangers. Everybody remembers the game. Nobody remembers the guy coughing behind you until a few days later. At 2 a.m., you wake up with a fever and your throats on fire. Now what? Urgent care, clothes, ER, slam, telehealth, maybe, but the pharmacy's clothes. You needed a medical emergency kit. These aren't first aid kits. They contain essential prescriptions used for over 30 common conditions. Sinus and ear infection, UTI, stomach bug, travelers diarrhea, and more. On hand before you need them. Use your doctor-developed guidebook to select the right prescription or call their telemedicine doctor standing by. It's like an urgent care and drugstore at home. When you're sick, traveling or stranded, you'll wish you ordered a medical emergency kit. Order online in minutes and it's shipped to your door and say $45 with my promo code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue. That's promo code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue.

1:01It was a listener to this radio program who emailed us last Thursday and all I did was read out the listener's email. It listeners just pointed out with that the South Kippsland Highway and the Bass Highway are extremely dangerous with pot hanks. The Moto GP is next month and there'll be many many people on motor sign. Yes. Riding down those two roads. Well there was an observation was they're not the other day that there are piece of less motorbikes on the road. Is that because of the danger of pot holes? Well and there we have it. Over the weekend a motorcyclist was killed after his motorcycle hit a pot hole and on a trotious stretch of road in Victoria's West yesterday. Danny O'Brien is the shadow minister for roads and road safety. At which point Danny, thank you for your time. Does poor road maintenance stop become regional inconvenience and actually become criminal negligence? Well sadly Ross I think it actually did on the weekend and that's the tragedy that we've had there at Travalla on the western highway and my heart goes out to the family.

2:04It's the man who's been killed as you indicated but there's been other instances as well where we've been warning of this for some time. The reality is that pot holes can be an inconvenience maybe a damage maybe some costly damage for a motorist but for a motorcyclist. Unfortunately that can be catastrophic and we've seen that on the weekend which is just a tragedy. Danny the auditor told us the auditor told us last week that half the roads were in poor condition. Poor or very poor. Poor or very poor condition. So it's almost like the problem is so big it will it can't be fixed quickly. No it's not it's it's going to take a long time and I've said in the context of our commitment to spend five billion dollars on the roads over four years that is probably going to get worse before it gets better because we've got such a bad state of our roads at the moment and particularly because the preventative maintenance has not been done. We haven't been doing the resealing. We haven't been grading the road sides, getting the drains cleared so that the water doesn't get in and create those pot holes in the first place and I think the auditor general's

3:05highlight of that 48% of the state's roads in poor or very poor condition and to be frank guys that was two years ago and we know that it's probably got worse since and so unfortunately our roads are in a very very bad state and it's going to take a long time and a lot of money to fix them. Double bung a question. When did the neglect start and why did the neglect start? Well I think two things. Firstly we know that when Ben Carroll was the roads minister he catapet 200 million dollars from the roads maintenance budget but most particularly in the 20th or 24 summacies and the government did no resealing. They didn't do any of the resealing program and you need to be resealing about 10% of the network every year to keep on top of it. If you don't do that after a period of time the bitumen cracks the water gets in the pot holes form and we just haven't been doing enough of that the last couple of years. No doubt we had floods in 2022 and that did destroy a large part of the network but the government simply didn't do enough to get on top of it and make sure that we kept doing that preventative maintenance. So Danny we know the broken window, the effect the broken windows have on how people perceive a

4:10city. So the effect that the roads, the roads being in the condition that they're in, it must be affecting how our state is seen by the rest of the country. Oh absolutely Russ it's in a year at all the time from visitors they say I can't believe the state of the roads when you were in Victoria as soon as we came across the border and I think it's a symptom more broadly of the decay of our state unfortunately. Whether it's the state of the roads, whether it's the vegetation on the side of the roads or the graffiti I think you just see that that broken window effect that you talk about that people are looking at it going what's a state use this they can't even keep the basics right and that's that's something that they know absolutely we need changing that in the from. And and Danny of course you just mentioned it it's not about just fixing the roads of course I mean many of us we would have driven past you know signage road signage which is just covered up by trees. Yeah I covered up by trees covered in graffiti, knocked down and not replaced you know the roadside barriers that supposedly there to keep the safe that are repeatedly not repaired unless that left damage for months and months and months all of

5:12those things they're a symptom of but they are all are all related to the road maintenance budget and we just not haven't been seeing enough and you know a government that's wasted 15 billion dollars on corruption on the big build and yet we can't get enough spent to keep our roads up to scratch. Good on you Danny Danny O'Brien, Shadow Minister for roads and road safety. And what the auditor of course told us last week is it's not a perception like as in it's not we don't perceive that the potholes are there it's real. Dave Roberts here there you are surrounded by fans sharing wings sharing drinks high-fiving random strangers everybody remembers the game nobody remembers the guy coughing behind you until a few days later at 2 a.m. you wake up with the fever and your throats on fire now what urgent care close ER slam telehealth maybe but the pharmacies close you needed a medical emergency kit these aren't first aid kits they contain essential prescriptions used for over 30 common conditions sinus and ear infection UTIs stomach bug travelers diarrhea and more on hand before you need them use your doctor develop guidebook to select the right

6:16prescription or call their telemedicine doctor standing by it's like an urgent care and drugstore at home when you're sick traveling or stranded you'll wish you ordered a medical emergency kit order online in minutes and it's shipped to your door and say 45 dollars with my promo code blue at urgentcare kit dot com slash blue that's promo code blue at urgentcare kit dot com slash blue