Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about a dangerous intersection in my electorate of Swan which needs immediate attention. Recently, local resident and small businessman Wayne Frendo contacted me about the Cohn Street-Harris Street intersection in Carlisle. Living on the corner of the intersection, Mr Frendo had seen many near misses and crashes and was concerned that it would only be a matter of time before a fatality occurred. Wayne provided me with photographic evidence of a recent accident where the police, fire and ambulance emergency services were called to the crash scene. The driver only just managed to escape with their life. Mr Frendo then invited me to inspect the intersection myself and I was immediately struck by seeing the debris from crashes scattered across the streetscape and across his front yard. The intersection itself is formed by two stop signs on Harris Street. On closer inspection it was obvious that speed was not the only problem, with tyre marks indicating that hooning was also prevalent. I think the local hoons call it ‘doughnutting’.

To determine the scale of the problem I distributed a road safety survey and the neighbourhood residents have been returning them in numbers. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Mr Frendo for his help in distributing those surveys. I found it particularly important to seek feedback from the community given that Main Roads data has only picked up two serious crashes in the last five years. As such, I asked in my survey for the residents to document incidents that they themselves have witnessed at the intersection. Most respondents took the opportunity to do just that. Many told me how baffled they were at the Main Roads official statistics, detailing comprehensive eyewitness accounts of incidents on almost a daily basis. Main Roads are obviously not picking up all of the crashes at this intersection, which calls into question the use of the intersection crash ranking report as a planning tool for prioritising intersection upgrades.

The feedback from residents suggested the main problem is cars not stopping at the designated stop signs on Harris Street and driving straight over Cohn Street, leading to near misses and plenty of dangerous situations. There was also a comment made that there were accidents occurring at the times of day when people were driving directly toward the sun. The majority of people who have responded so far suggested some change to the road layout as the best way to address this problem. Many have argued that a roundabout would be appropriate in this situation. I am still receiving responses and collating the results. I have contacted the local council, who are responsible for road upgrades in the area, and I am pleased that they are willing to meet at the intersection soon. The CEO has taken interest in the intersection. I look forward to sharing with them the concerns of the local residents soon—it is actually going to be this Friday at 10 o’clock.

See this speech in context