Road crash rescue teams in the Goulburn and Murray valleys are pleading with drivers to drive safely, after attending far more fatalities than usual this year.
Twenty people have died on the region’s roads since New Year’s Eve.
Cobram SES deputy controller Luke Herezo said his unit had attended seven road crash rescues in six weeks, with six people killed.
It is a harrowing statistic when you consider Cobram SES has attended more crashes in that time than it usually does in a year.
“Normally we average five or six a year,” Mr Herezo said.
“It’s the most we’ve had to do in a month.
“We haven’t seen these sort of statistics since the Tocumwal Bends were fixed about 15 years ago.”
Back then, the Tocumwal Bends — the stretch of the Goulburn Valley Hwy between Koonoomoo and Tocumwal — was the most deadly 3km stretch of road in Australia, Mr Herezo said.
“We would average two to three accidents a month back then,” he said.
Mr Herezo said he was frustrated with the number of crashes that were occurring in the region, and he urged people to drive to road conditions and to ignore their mobile phone.
“Country roads have quirks where you might have a give way sign where you wouldn’t expect it,” he said.
Mr Herezo said while the roads had not changed in many years, crashes were still occurring on them.
He said an increase in traffic on some roads had led to them becoming notorious in the area for crashes, including Labuan Rd, where five people died in a horrific crash between a car, ute and truck in April.
“The Labuan Rd (intersection with Murray Valley Hwy) is no different to intersections either side of it, but because of the cut-through use by traffic it has more crashes,” he said.
Mr Herezo said the challenge of being in the SES in a small community such as Cobram was that members often knew the people involved in crashes, or knew someone who did know them.
Losses in small towns can have a big impact on the community, with an outpouring of grief seen recently when a vigil was held in Cobram after the Strathmerton crash that killed five people.
Shepparton Search and Rescue vice-president Mick D’Elia agreed.
“I always wonder if it is going to be someone I know,” he said.
“It plays on your mind every time you go out.”
Mr D’Elia estimates that for each of the 20 years he has been involved in Shepparton Search and Rescue he would have gone to at least one crash that has involved someone he has known reasonably well.
While he did not have the exact figures, Mr D’Elia said Shepparton Search and Rescue would have easily attended 50 per cent more crashes so far this year than in previous years.
And his unit was not even called out to all collisions — only those where a road rescue team was needed.
And he believes the majority of crashes he has attended could have been avoided.
“Every time we have road trauma, it is because someone has made a mistake,” he said.
“It’s very rare any are just dumb luck.”
Mr D’Elia said Shepparton Search and Rescue attended an average of 65 crashes a year, and in the 20 years he had been involved he said only a handful came down to bad luck.
“At every crash you look at it and say, how did it happen and why?” he said.
“Normally you can pick that they were going too fast, or they have gone through a stop sign, or they have done something wrong.”
According to Mr D’Elia, generally road trauma is caused by a lack of concentration.
He also has a theory that the COVID-19 lockdowns have led to an increase in crashes now.
“We were off the road for a while and people need to get back into practice (with driving),” he said.
“We are not used to concentrating for long periods of time.”
He also said cars were lethal weapons, and people needed to pay attention to what they were doing when driving.