Horrific Car Accident

Six Teenagers Dead

On Saturday evening, a horrific car accident occured in the Victorian rural region of Cardross where several teenagers were hit by a car, as they stood by the side of the road. The group. numbering about 15 persons, was leaving a birthday party.

Witnesses reported that, as the car approached the area, other groups of people were walking along the road, towards another party in the area, and the driver braked so hard to avoid hitting them that a front tyre exploded and threw the vehicle sideways off the road into the victims.

As at writing, 6 teenagers, from as young as 15, are dead and others are still in hospital.

The driver, a 34 year old male, was threatened by other persons at the scene and fled in fear into nearby grape vines. Later in the evening he was arrested and is facing several charges. Two of his own children were in his car and he said he had to abandon them to prevent what he thought would be his own death or serious injury at the hands of the enraged spectators.

Substandard Street Lighting

A senior police officer stated that the lighting along the road is extremely poor, which has been a source of complaint for many years. The reflective visibility is almost zero in some areas of Mildura city and surrounding districts

This is probably caused by the exteme heat in summer which melts the roads and alters the dispersion ratio of bitument to gravel throughout the tarmac. The road surface becomes covered in the black, non-reflective tar as vehicles squash the gravel down into the substance.

A solution seems to be to cease using a bitumen road surface and use concrete, as is used in Sydney and elsewhere in Australia, or coat the existing roads with silicone or another product with light reflecting properties.

The headlights of a car perform almost as if they are not turned on at all and people are forced to drive as if blind.

Please pray for the recovery of those persons who are still in hospital and for the families of all the victims of this aweful disaster.

Please lobby the Mildura City Council, Mildura, Victoria, Australia, 3500 to fix the atrocious street lighting in the city and district by spraying the roads with a reflective substance, add such a product to roadmaking materials when building or maintaining the roads or to use a safer road making material altogether, such as cement.