‘I fear for my life’: Mannum Road speed limit is unsafe, resident says
A Murray Bridge resident is campaigning for an extension of the 80km/h zone on a main road in the face of increasing truck traffic.
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Jo Welch worries about her parents.
Aged in their 80s, they live on a stretch of Mannum Road where the speed limit is 100 kilometres per hour, close to a rise which limits their visibility.
The thought of them trying to edge out of their driveway, or even put their bins out safely, fills Ms Welch with dread.
Standing out the front of their property, it takes just six seconds for a B-double truck to go from invisible to right on top of you.
“It has always been a safety issue,” she said.
“I fear for their lives.
“I fear for my life, but I’m not 81 or 85.”
Although her parents had lived at the property since the 1970s, she said, more and more trucks had been travelling along the route in the past five years.
Many were headed to and from Thomas Foods International’s abattoir at Pallamana, which opened in 2023.
General truck traffic had increased, too, following a series of upgrades to the route in 2021 and 2022.
The result: too many near misses, including one in which Ms Welch said a horse float had been forced off the road recently; and residents’ wheelie bins being blown over by the force of passing vehicles.
Lower speed limit would reduce the risk
Ms Welch believed the speed limit needed to be lowered to 80km/h along the stretch of road where her parents, and other residents, live.
According to the National Road Safety Partnership Program, reducing the speed limit on a road from 100 to 80km/h:
- Gives drivers 20 per cent longer to react to a hazard
- Shortens a car’s stopping distance by 29 metres
- Increases the chances of survival in a crash to 75%, up from just 10%
To make the change happen, Ms Welch will need to convince the state Department of Infrastructure and Transport, which is responsible for Mannum Road.
The Murray Bridge council last week voted to write a letter in support of her efforts, at the urging of Councillor Airlie Keen.
Cr Tom Haig described the safety risk as “unacceptable”.
“On that stretch of road there are blind spots, there are hills,” he said.
“It must be a safety issue every bit as much as those heavy vehicles barrelling their way down Cypress Terrace and onto Maurice Road.
“(We need to) take what this woman says seriously before somebody gets wiped out on that road.”
There are about 30 houses along the 4.6-kilometre stretch of Mannum Road between the Palmer turn-off and Dean Jaensch Road.
On most other approaches to Murray Bridge – including the Karoonda Highway and Old Princes Highway to the east, and Brinkley and Jervois Roads to the south – the speed limit is 80 out to the edge of the populated area.
Only to the west, on the Old Princes Highway at White Hill, are similar rural properties placed within a 100 zone.
Long-term picture looks rosier
On the bright side, truck traffic along the section of Mannum Road where Ms Welch’s parents live is likely to be greatly reduced over the next 10 years.
The state and federal governments have budgeted to build a freight bypass around Murray Bridge, from the Monarto freeway exit north along Schenscher, Pallamana and Wagenknecht Roads.
However, it is not yet clear whether the state government’s commitment will be enough to get the job done.
Negotiations between the two levels of government are ongoing.
