3 August 2018

Dash-cam footage reveals frighteningly close call on Monaro Highway

| Glynis Quinlan
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A screenshot of the dash-cam footage provided by Grace Stevens showing a close call between a ute and a white car on the Monaro Highway.

In an effort to highlight dangerous driving occurring “every single week”, a Cooma woman has released dash-cam footage of a frighteningly close call when a ute is faced with an overtaking car travelling right into its path on the Monaro Highway.

The incident captured dramatically on camera took place around 5 pm on Tuesday (July 31) and shows the ute swerving off the road to narrowly avoid the oncoming car which has crossed into its lane.

Grace Stevens was travelling back to Cooma and was near the Ryrie Road before Bredbo when the near-miss took place in front of her.

Grace said that “sadly this happens way too often, especially between Cooma and Canberra” and so she decided to post the footage on Facebook to draw attention to the problem.

“I posted it to definitely draw attention to the ridiculous and dangerous driving that happens on the roads with the snowy mountain region,” Grace told The RiotACT.

“People have been trying to draw attention to this problem for so long, especially with this year feeling as though it has been the worst.

“I experience someone driving recklessly every single week and people dying is still not enough to stop them, which is a shame.

“And being locals to the area, it’s a shame that generally it’s the tourists causing these problems and putting lives at risk.”

Grace said that the young man driving the car has been in touch with her since the incident and has told her that he is “a little shaken but okay.”

“Just wanted to say, good on him for the way he quickly reacted and avoided the situation.”

The driver, Will Wright of Berridale, has since been in touch with The RiotACT and said that the other driver’s rush to get home could have come at the cost of his life.

“Unfortunately this [kind of driving] is a common occurrence in our local area, it was only Grace’s footage that made this public,” Will said.

“I encourage people to invest in dash-cams, it helps raise awareness of dangerous driving such as this.

“It’s lucky I was able to evade this collision and I hope everyone stays safe on the roads – and please don’t rush.”

Grace said she has passed the footage on to the Cooma and Jindabyne police and is waiting for them to get back to her.

Below is the dash-cam footage of the incident provided by Grace Stevens.

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Something very similar happened to me early one morning in ’68 heading to Cooma, only three cars involved. I was following a Falcon when a car well ahead came wide around a bend, out of fog. Both the Falcon driver and myself thought it would go back on the correct side of the road. It didn’t, the Falcon braked hard slewing the car to the left which was just enough room to allow the other one through, I ran out of space and into the Falcon’s rear. The driver had been asleep.

Angry_of_Devonport4:59 pm 09 Aug 18

How about the third car back at 0.21, the SUV with no lights on? a dark coloured car, twilight, cloudy, same colour as the road.
O.K. he may be able to see where he is going but almost invisible to others.
People don’t realise that at that time of day you do not see colours so well, this car is the same TONE as the road and as I said, nearly invisible.

I have only been driving or riding a motorcycle on that road since 1980, so don’t really feel that qualified to comment. In my view it is not that bad a bit of road if you are aware of the risks. If you give yourself a 3 to 5 second gap it can become quite a smooth trip. I find a lot of people using it drive like they are on Northbourne Ave.

Moving to the video. Firstly, the guy driving the ute did everything correct and as others have said needs congratulating. The flog driving the white Audi did pretty much everything wrong and should have their licence pulled and car crushed without delay. The driver with the roof box on should have moved over earlier. The 4WD ute driver is certainly way too close to the car in front and made sure the Audi had no chance to safely pull in. Did they actually speed up to hinder the overtaking manoeuvre as some on that road do? Grace should probably also look at the separation distances she uses because if it had gone totally to custard she may well have been caught up in a multi vehicle crash. I will add the disclaimer that those dash cams tend to distort distances somewhat.

I notice NSW Police have established Strikeforce Puma for investigating, amongst other things, bad driving videos that appear on social media. I await a similar initiative for this side of the border, but don’t expect it in a hurry.

Happens all the time along there. Half the issue is that there are way too few overtaking lanes, and way too many people doing 20 under the limit until they get to an overtaking lane, where they miraculously start doing 110-120. Other one is people towing caravans that way exceed their vehicles towing capacity, doing 70, and have a mile of traffic backed up behind them but are too inconsiderate to pull up and let people pass. People end up getting frustrated and do stupid and dangerous things to overtake. Either put in more overtaking lanes, or police both sides of the stupidity.

justin heywood3:46 pm 02 Aug 18

Wow. The ute driver had his lights on – how did that idiot think it was safe to overtake?

I’m starting to like these dash cams. I wonder if the original footage is clear enough to get his plate?

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