A Bacchus Marsh resident was left “shaking and scared” after a truck on Grant Street sideswiped her car and bent a door.
Karen Trask had got out of her car on the busy Bacchus Marsh street on June 16 when a white rental truck swept past her vehicle and struck the open door.
“If I’d have been a step closer to the road, I’d have been killed,” Ms Trask said. “The truck driver just sped off.”
Although Ms Trask condemned the actions of the individual driver, she said it was not an isolated incident. “I can say with confidence, I’ve heard of six similar incidents,” she said. “There isn’t enough room on the road. Trucks have nowhere else to go in peak hour, and at those times Grant Street is bedlam.”
Ewen Nevett, regional director of VicRoads, said the regular “bottleneck” situations that occurred on the street were the result of a rapidly rising population.
“It’s added enormous pressure to the road network and we understand there are community concerns about this,” he said.
Mr Nevett said that in the five years to the end of last December, there were eight crashes on Grant Street that caused injury.
“Three were rear-end crashes, which are common in congested areas; one was a cross-traffic crash at an intersection; one was a run-off-road crash; one involved a car coming out of a driveway and two involved pedestrians,” he said.
“None of the crashes involved heavy vehicles.”
Mr Nevett said all residents with concerns about Grant Street should attend a community workshop in the Lerderderg library in Main Street at 6.15pm on
Wednesday.
