January 2026 has seen three road crashes involving heavy trucks in just one week.
On Monday Jan 5, a single vehicle fatal crash.
On Wednesday Jan 7, a truck and five car crash on the Picton Road.
On Thursday Jan 8, a B Double and truck crash on the Hume Highway.
The B Double and truck crash on the Hume Highway on 7 January was the fifth reported truck-truck crash on the Hume Highway in just 53 weeks - one in VIctoria and four in NSW. Regrettably, some of these were fatal crashes.
In addition, he loss of life in road crashes involving articulated trucks (including semitrailers in B Doubles) have shown an increase in NSW over the past five years.
Clearly, measures including track upgrades to get more freight on rail should be seen as an investment in road safety.
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The truck crash on the Hume Highway on 7 June was the fifth truck-truck crashe occurring on the Hume Highway in the 53 weeks from 1 January 2025 to 8 January 2026. Of these, one was in Victoria and four in NSW.
The one in Victoria was a fatal one involving a B Double. The four in NSW were a fatal crash in January 2025 , a fatal crash involving B Doubles near Yass in February 2025, in April 2025 and on 8 January 2026, a B Double-truck collision on the Hume Highway not far from Berrima that led to the Hume Highway being closed to all traffic in both directions for several hours.
As noted in a BITRE 2022 publication,” … the impact of road trauma on individuals as well as society as a whole is significant, costing the Australian economy approximately $30 billion per … Heavy vehicle crashes constitute around $1.5 billion of this…”.
As noted by the Australasian Railway Association, “annual total crash costs for road freight in Australia is estimated to cost over $3 billion compared with $282 million for rail freight.”
Earlier analysis found an Australia-wide average accident cost for freight moved by articulated trucks at 0.6 cents per net tonne kilometre, as against 0.03 cents per net kilometre for rail freight - a ratio of 20 to one.
It should start as The truck crash on the Hume Highway on 7 January 2026 was the fifth truck-truck crash ...
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