98.5 ONE FM Podcasts
Johnny Painter Interviews Bill Winters from RoadSafe Goulburn Valley - June 28, 2024
This interview first aired on Friday the 28th of June, 2024 on ONE FM 98.5 Shepparton.
One FM announcer John Painter interviews Bill Winters from RoadSafe Goulburn Valley. Bill gives an update on everything they have been up to.
If you have some suggestions call Bill on 0437 762 520. For enquiries about the L2P program call Berry St on 58228100 and ask for Jennifer.
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- Duration:
- 23m
- Broadcast on:
- 28 Jun 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
- You're listening to a one FM podcast. - And with me in the studio, I have Bill Winter from RoadSafe, going very good afternoon, Bill. - Good afternoon, Johnny, and listeners. - Yeah, it's good to have you back. - Oh, it's nice to be back on a fantastic day. - Oh, beautiful, that's all, absolutely. - Yeah, absolutely. - You've been very busy by the sound of it. - Oh, a bit of running around, yeah, exactly right. She had a couple of medical bits and pieces during the week sorted out, which is good, yeah. - That's always good. (laughing) - Oh, I had a bit busy morning as well. I did a, about one hour bike ride and two hours of bad mittens. So, I'm sort of, actually, I feel quite good. - Good, excellent, yeah. - And that's what a hot shower does, I think. (laughing) - It's been going again. - Mm-hmm. - So, what have you, what else have you been up to? What's RoadSafe been there doing with their last couple of weeks? - Well, we have been taking note of what's happening on our roads, in particular, the resealing and re-ash felting and re-digging, regrooving, and all the work that's happening around the Shepherd and Mertner area. - Yep. - And all credit to the council, you know, they've spent a lot of money, I believe it's somewhere in the order of about $6 million, over 71 roads, and about 61 kilometers of road as well. - Yep. - Been pre-sealed and all that. And, you know, you and I have been keeping an eye on a chucca road, and that intersection with McLennan Street, and that's coming along beautifully at the moment. - It is, isn't it? - Yeah. - I wrote down the other day, and I thought, "Oh, this is very nice." (laughs) So, I think they're doing a great job. And all credit to the guys, they are working very hard. - Oh, they certainly are. Yeah, even the Watt Road and the highway, yeah, McLennan Street intersection at the other end of town, that's absolutely amazing, the things they've done in there, it's just so good coming through that intersection now. - Yeah, and to think out of the box a little bit, and say, "Let's do this work at night," when there's a lot less traffic around. - Yep. - It has a less impact, I guess, on traffic flow, 'cause there's a huge amount. I don't know how many cars would go through there, but I do know I was involved with information collecting some 40, 45 years ago on McLennan Street, and that's something like 8,000 vehicles a day. - Yeah. - I reckon it's probably 10 times that time. - Easy. Easy, yeah. - Yeah, 'cause as we know, some people are over and back, over and back over and back over. - Yeah, it's exactly right, yep. And then there's the people coming from out of areas, yeah. - I had the pleasure of a person tailgating me the other day. - Oh, no, yeah. - I'm sitting on 80 Ks, going across all the traffic on the side of me, it was 80 Ks, like mate, you can't go anywhere, but I need to be able to see you. I was aware you're there because the alarms were going off and the car, and it doesn't like it, has it? - Yeah, so it's a very dangerous practice, and you and I have seen and heard of many stories regarding fast, and you need to have that space there. You really, really do. - Yeah, I was being abused once, a while back by a driver said, "Oh, yeah, I've slowed down. "You're supposed to be going faster." I said, "It's an 80 K limit. "What's the road laws on 80 Ks?" "Oh, you're supposed to get out of the way." I said, "Go and read your road laws. "Go and learn it." - Yeah, they don't understand that 80 is the cutoff point, isn't it? - Right, yep, keep left unless overtaking only applies on roads above 80 Ks. - Look, and we're going into the winter period, and it will be fog and rain happening in our quite light. And it is necessary to have two seconds plus. - Yeah, so with this particular light, I'm still sitting at the lights, and I'll just yell at him right, "Send me your driver's license number, "and I'll increase my speed." And he said, "What speed do you want me to do?" I said, "I'll do it for you, no worries, "but you'll pay the fines." Shut him up real quick. (laughing) - It's interesting, I had a phone call during the week, and I get quite a few gentlemen rang up and spoke about people traveling through the Greater Golden Valley, and let's say from Melbourne, who I'm used to and quite comfortable driving around Melbourne, sort of reverse to us. They're in the country areas, and they're sort of lulling off a little bit, you know, the fatigues kicking in after a couple hours of driving. And it's quite a few of them people have mentioned to me, they've noticed people on the roads sort of weaving a little bit, slowing down, speeding up, and when they do sort of go past and look at them, they can set the sort of half knotting off, they're not quite switched off, so. And particularly with the warm days, like today, that sunshine coming through, it tends to make you get a little bit tired, so you've got to be well rested, I suppose, and have your fluids and be quite switched on. And if you are going on a long trip, make sure you get enough sleep the night before. - Absolutely. - Be well prepared, and enjoy the journey, 'cause we want you to come back home. - Yeah, remember a few years back when they were talking about the bypass, going to the east of Shepherd, and when they built that through, somebody wanted to build a service station complex and restaurant out there, and they knocked it all back and said, "Oh, no, we don't want that," because too many of them had restaurants in the city, and they reckon they'd be hit by it. But it's two and a bit hours out of Melbourne, on the bypass, time to have a break, have a cup of coffee, maybe something to eat, because there's nowhere in Shepherd and really that you can do that. - Yeah, and I forget to hear a reasonable argument as to why the bypass can't be on the eastern side of Shepherd and I know it's all about the bridge, but I think the bridge should be treated as a separate issue. - Absolutely. - And I know there'll be people come back at me and say, "No, no, we're gonna put the two girls out, "only we're gonna get funding." But can someone please explain to me how many millions we've spent already? - Yeah. - Just having a look at it. - Exactly. - You know, is there a contract job out there, a consulting job that I'm available to fill in, 'cause there's obviously a lot of money available to do this, and I think it seriously needs to be looked at. - Yep. - For sure. - I know, track drivers in particular, they don't want to go to the west, they don't want to go to the east side. - 'Cause that's where all the tracking depots are. - Yeah, they are. And they're going through to places like Cobham, Togor, Wagga, Wagga, those sort of places. - Yeah, it's on that route, yeah. So it'd be an interesting question, and I'd really like to be involved in a forum to discuss a little bit further, 'cause I really think we're going down the wrong path. - Well, we certainly are. And it made me laugh the other day. I made a little quip as I was driving along. Oh, this is where the bypass is going to be. My wife laughed, and she says, "Well, you got a short memory." And that's what it means. She said, she said, "I can remember Santa Verapodu, "just passed away a couple weeks ago, "and guide for us itself." - Yeah, rest in place, mate. - Yep, great person. Came into our little shop at Admona, and said they're thinking about building a bypass through Admona. This is ridiculous. This is stupid. We really need to fight against it. And it sort of got relocated a little bit towards Excelsior Avenue. Now, that is 1981, '83, so I'm talking about, so what's that, 35 years ago? - That's right, yep. - Is going to happen in my lifetime. My wife says, "No, it's not." It's not. - Yep, I totally agree with you. - And Johnny, you know, we, in one FM world, we have people that listen from all over the place. - We do, yeah, yeah. - Do you realize I had a phone call last Friday night from North Queensland? - Really? - Yeah. - I said, "Where are you calling from?" He said, "North Queensland. "I heard you on the radio." So he said, "I wanted to highlight something to you "while I'm traveling." So you're not driving. He said, "No, I'm in the caravan park, blah, blah, blah." And I said, "That's great." And that was good. - And some people have noticed the green reflectors on the highways. - Yeah. - Have you noticed it? - Yeah, when you come up to a neater section or a feed off, it happens on the GV highway, especially around the merchants and turn off. There's little green reflectors on the middle of the road. - Not in the middle of the road, either. - No, on the left side, on the left-hand side. - Yep. - Three, two, and one. And normally they start about 500 meters away from the endpoint. And the endpoint is a way, an area that you can pull off and relax, change a tyre. - Right, yeah. - But keep whatever. - Yep. - It's ideal for trucks. - Yep. - But it's also available for the normal traveler. - Yeah. - And you and Isaac as well. - I didn't realize they had green markers on. I knew they had the green markers on an area where you can, well, because you say you're coming up the highway and you want to go to Murchison and you come into the left lane and swing to the left to do that. And there's green markers there. But I hadn't noticed anything on the parking areas, yeah. - No, I don't think it's on that particular road. - Yeah. - It's certainly on the Hume Highway, 'cause I know one of my fellow workers, he did a survey in conjunction with Victoria Police and Vic Rhodes to find some of these old dump sites. You know, where they put the gravel down over the years and it gets compressed and it's an ideal place. - Not an official rest place, not with toilets and such, normally. But there are a few of these along on the way. So they're three, two and one. But it's ideal for somebody's in an RV or a caravan and they're aware that there's a lot of traffic behind them. So they can pull in there if they wish to, have a rest whatever or slow down and then drive out again and then all the traffic's gone past. - Yeah. - And you made me aware of this because there is a site that you can Google and it's called truckfriendly.com. A-U. - All right. - So I Googled it and had a good look at the site and a lot of interesting stuff in there. And it's about RVs and caravans working in sync with truck drivers. - Yep. - 'Cause truck drivers get frustrated. - Oh yeah. - And they've got this little RV in front of them putting along at 90 Ks, 95 Ks. And you know, most RVs probably, oh, I know, four and a half, five ton, something like that. So there's a bit of wet there, but not exceptionally quick. So that's an ideal situation. So if you're looking for some interesting reading, it does come out of Queensland, but it's called truck friendly. - Yep. - And if you have channel 40 on your UHF, you can join up with this group. - Oh right, yeah. - And they give you a lovely sticker as well. (laughing) - Excellent. - Yep, but that's really good. And another thing while I was sort of fiddling around on that site, I noticed there was up in Queensland, they have areas where some of the roadways are painted red. - All right. - Yeah, so this is sort of highlights to you that there's a danger ahead. We associate red with danger. - Yeah. - We know that yellow is quite dominant, so it really stands out. There's reasons why we have, apparently red is the next one along that line that stands out as well. And so they might have an area where you say, going from an 80K zone into a 40K zone, as well as the sign that'll have a painted area in red. And they also have it at, let's say dangerous stop areas, stop lines. - Right, mm-hmm. - Yeah, so you gotta be aware that you do go to the white painted line, not the yellow one, go to the white painted line. But what it does, it falls in sync with what I've been saying for a long time, that sometimes in these really bad intersections, we need something more than just a stop line. - Yes. - We'll put a double stop line work, in my mind it would, you know. I would probably do it, go first stop line, then creep up to the second one and have a look. What it does, it takes the judgment out, and you just come to a stop in that area. - Yeah. - But what they've gone, they've got to step further and they've painted it red. And it's got all that shiny stuff in it. Silicone or glass or something like that. And I had a look at a few examples, and one of the driving schools was talking about it, and I thought, I don't know if that's a bloody good idea. - Yeah, absolutely. - And I was strong advocate for yellow. I really like yellow on the signage and the stuff, because it stands out. - It does, yeah, exactly right. - I don't know, and somebody explained it to me one day while we don't use it more often. I think it's great. And I think a really good example of that is, if you're going from, let's say, Burnside to Shepparton, and you've got those wire ropes down the side, and the barriers and all that. And they're sort of a gray, mucky-gray sort of color, aren't they? - They are, yeah. - And they have little bits, little reflectors in their little yellow reflectors. But on the ends, it's black and white. - Yep. - And you come to a Gold Murray Water Bridge, and guess what's on them? - Yeah. - Yellow. - Yeah. - And they're really standing, they've got big metal or plastic caps on the end of the barriers. - Yep. - And I think, well, that's a good idea. So why don't we utilise that color a little bit more? - Yeah, you're right, yeah. - You know, and there's another thing, while we're talking about the council before, this week they had a session down to the senior citizens' rooms. - Right, I did read about that, Chair. - And quite a few people came along, and the basis of it, or what it was all about, was road safety in the Golden Valley, the greater Golden Valley. And it worked on the safe system. What is the safe system? So if you're not sure, folks, Google it once again, the safe system. - Yep. - It's what Vic Rhodes and the TAC basis, a lot of their thinking on. And it's not only talks about, or thinks about the people, but talks about the law and the infrastructure of the roads, and also the justice system. But there's a fifth column to all this, and that's the people that are first responders, and the people that work in the hospital system, the health system, to support someone, post a car crash. And it was really good, because each of the tables was laid up in one of these categories, so you could talk to someone there, and they would jock down all the relevant points that they thought were good, and the paper was just full on columns. And there was lots of people walking in off the street, had their two bobs worth. - Good. - And it was a good opportunity to sort of collate that information and put together, I've come across this group before, because they're a commercial group, I'm not going to mention who they are, but they do a very good job, work with a lot of councils, to sort of pair the way for the future. What are the issues, because as we drive around, where the eyes and the ears, - We are, yeah. - We can give that information to council, and then they can react accordingly. So I thought it was a great idea by the council to do that and make that available. - Yeah, my greatest concern around the place is, the little, or the minor road laws that nobody ever bothers with, like crossing a broken white line. Yeah. Little things. Now there's laws there, there's points on them, but they're never enforced. - Well, if you want to have a fun day, watching people crossing double lines, let's go down to Wellsford Street. - Yes. - And it intrigues me sometimes that highly educated people can come out of some of those businesses. - Yes. - I just do a U-turn, it just goes straight across the double line. - Yep, exactly. - We have the law, and I just think it's good enough. I think we all have to do the right thing, and I'm particularly aware of it, because it's no good me saying one thing and doing the other thing, because someone will pick up on it straight away. When you come off from Night Street, I've mentioned it before, you come off Night Street around the left hand bend, and you're going to turn into Queen and Parade, or the little one there. There's a unbroken white line, goes right the way up to the intersection, but somebody from somewhere has painted the turn arrows in the middle of that section. And of course everybody comes around the corner, there's the arrow, so straight across the unbroken white line, but there's a broken white line at the intersection, where you're supposed to turn. - Yeah, that has actually created a lot of conjecture, because you come off the boulevard, you turn left, sweeping towards the east, into Night Street, that's the bottom of Night Street. And then you see a couple sets of arrows, and you say to yourself, that's sort of going against the flow, the way that it goes. - That's right, yeah. - To me, sometimes I look at them, I'm not sure if there's consistency to it, it's not that they're all the same. - 'Cause I'll go past those white arrows, and I'll turn, go to turn right, at the broken section. And there'll be somebody coming up, we'll duck across the white line, and be sitting right on my door as I make my turn. - That's correct, yeah. - And the problem is, that space where the broken lines are, is not that big. - That's not. - And if you've got a largest car, you might end up with the boot of your car sticking out a little bit. To me, it's a little bit dangerous as well. - It is, yeah. - I think it's something that needs to be looked at. - It does, maybe re-geeked a little bit, just to make it a bit. Maybe it just needs a slip plane. - Yes, exactly. - A slip plane there. So, one after the other, so to speak, you just see what continuous snake line goes through. - It's right. - That's what I follow. But, I have watched that in particular area, because it was raised a number of years ago, and people have been mentioning it lately. You're confused. - Yeah. - And I thought, "Mm, okay." - The other one is the pinch point in Marupna, coming through opposite the Catholic school, when you're coming out of Shepperton. The people don't know how to zip merge. They all slow down and go very, very slowly, and then there'll be somebody turning left to go and pick the dealies up, and they'll stand on the brakes and slow everybody down. The next thing, they're back back through the intersection, and doing 10 and 12 Ks, because instead of accelerating and letting people merge and get going, they're trying to chase each other and block each other out. - Yeah, there's also double lines there. - Yeah, that traffic on. And I have seen quite a number of people crossing it to go into the school precinct. - Yep. - I know a few years ago, when we had the farmers market, at Ferrari's Park, Ferrari Park, the police used to sit there and pick up people in the morning, at six o'clock in the morning, mind you, going across the double lines and just having a chat to them that it's not on. So, I don't know, it's frustrating. - Yeah, say it's those little laws that they keep bringing in, that are never enforced. - Hmm. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - We talk about this forever in a day. - Absolutely, it'd be very easy to keep going. No worries, Bill. - Yeah, but the important thing, folks, is that you need to drive safely to live for tomorrow, and be aware, we're on country roads. - Yes, it's. - That country people tend to get killed. - Yes. - On country roads. - It's also to start a school holiday, so there's going to be a lot more people out on the roads. - Yeah. - Oh, yeah, please be careful. Go and check those headlights. - And if you're not sure about how many people are speeding, there's an article in the Shep News today about an operation that occurred in both New South Wales and Victoria, along the Hume Highway. - Yeah. - And the number of people they picked up speeding in excess of 15, 20 over the scale of-- - Yeah, yeah. - So that 100 and 10s of speed limit, mostly. - Yeah. - Yeah, 120, 130 sort of in there. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, that's quite quick. - It is, yeah, exactly. - Anyway, and the snow season's on as well. - Yes, the snow bunnies are out again. Yeah, exactly. - So the police will have a field day. - They will. - Yeah, especially up that Maroondah highway. - Yes, exactly, yeah. And you can talk forever and a day about Maroondah highway. There's a lot going on there, isn't there? - Yeah, yeah, exactly right. - But we're here to promote road safety. - Yeah, definitely. - And if we can prompt people to think a bit more clearly or operate their motor vehicles. - Yeah. - That's really great. So that's really good. We do have some good news that RoadSafe, Government Valley, is like many groups within Victoria are reliant on grant money. - Yep. - So we put in a grant and put a lot of work into it. - Oh yeah, yeah. - And it's, we were successful, and the best part about it, we were 100% successful. - Even better. - Or what we applied for, yeah. - Even better. - I was ready to spit the dummy. Where the email arrived. Anyway, I'm sorry. Yeah, the classic, they'll cut and burn as they normally do, yeah. But no, to the credit once again, we've got four funding. - Yeah. - I think we must be doing a pretty good job. - I think you are, absolutely. I really do, yeah. - And I've got a great team behind me as well. - Yeah, fantastic. - Which helps a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience. - Yep. - They can provide a bit of guidance 'cause sometimes I need guidance. - Oh, for sure, Bill. No worries at all. That's great. - All righty. - Well, great to talk to you. We could keep going and go for a lot longer. Very easily, but I suppose you better play a little bit more music to finish the show out, and we'll see how we go from there. - Lovely. - Bill Winters. - Best everyone. - RoadSafe, Golden Valley, Bill Winters. Thank you very much, mate. - Thank you. - Look forward to talking to you in another couple of weeks' time. There we go. Boy, didn't we get through some info there? Fantastic. - In the financial year is just around the corner, and a shepherd in motorcycles and power equipment, we are fully stocked and ready for the rush. 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