Of course, ladies and gentleman, not surprisingly it is the driver. He was pissed off (0.002 over the limit) and might have possibly smoked “some substance” some time before. Thanks God, we all know that driver simply was drunk and therefore did not notice the gap until very late.

What a bunch of crap, I think. Whole 0.002 over the limit! Did anyone notice any reference on how accurate that blood alcohol test is? But regardless, in the first turn they did not hit the power pole that crossed the road, they did not park in the tree – they drowned in a river of dirty water in the same spot where a road was supposed to be, and, which does not make it any easier for those who really responsible for road collapse, the drainage issue was known well before and the collapse was completely preventable. But nothing has been done. The driver might be drunk but isn’t his and four other people death a bit too severe punishment for not predicting what should and could be prevented?

Living in Australia, we are relatively lucky – we don’t get black ice on the road (awesome feeling of sudden and total loss of control, a fresh change of pants may be required, if you were lucky), we don’t have six months of snowfalls, limiting visibility to tens of meters, the roads are mostly built on rocks instead of swamps, there are still plenty of room for new road (opposed to crowded Europe). The only we need is to build a road and make sure that when rain finally falls, it will go into sewage alone, without taking the asphalt with it. It is as simple as it is and not a rocket science at all – I bet building the house on the slope may be much more challenging than constructing a road. But why the hell things like this still happen? What are they waiting for? For a school bus full of children, sorry, don’t even want to think about that.

They have got their whipping boy, but why should we even care about who to blame? There is nothing we can help them or their families, there is only one question that should be asked – what has been done to stop roads from being flushed away in a country suffering from worst ever drought? Woy Woy road makes me think that very little indeed…

I am very, very frustrated, ladies and gentlemen.

They opened Woy Woy road in one direction and it apparently eased a pressure on evening commuters. But there are no evidences of any work in progress at Bulls hill, everything I could notice was a barricade and 25 km/h signs.

Another question is why did it open it in one direction only – while there is only one line available it still could be reversible, all they need is bring a pair of temporary radio controlled traffic lights and put them on the top and on the bottom of the hill – they do it all the time around roadwork sites anyway! In peak hour the whole thing could be one-directional, but there is no point of leaving it like this permanently – the traffic there has always been far from heavy and a couple of minutes wait in front of light would be much better than 25 minutes “drive” from Tascot to West Gosford.

Did they just never consider this option or there was another reason?

It happened quitely and without broad media coverage. Of course, who cares about forgotten suburb one hour drive north from Sydney?

The thing is that our one hour drive turned into almost two as motorists forced to take a detour via Gosford. The distance seems almost the same on the map, but in fact traffic around West Gosfors is just hopeless – in evening rush hour a traffic jam starts at Kariong! And still no “breaking news” and even any pictures. Isn’t it because what happened is very similar to Pacific hwy collapse at Somersby last year?

Thanks to Internet, there are some info and pictures available

But still no oficial information about when the road can be opened again. By the way, it does not seem that this could be quickly fixed providing essential safety to motorists as it looks like there is nothing left supporting the road from underneath the surface. Let’s hope it won’t be another CoalCliff bridge.

BTW, local authorities keep moarning that very little people catch a public transport instead of drivig to work, but the think is that they don’t have a glue. Today I would be happy to get on the train instead of standing still in a 40-minutes jam but I just could not find any place to park close to station. How the hell I was supposed to get on the train without getting a parking fine on a car towed away? Come on guys, stop appealing, just build more parking there! And more trains please, too. And get them fixed, at the ends!

Update: Just came across Gosford council website when they finally bothered to put some iinformation on. While driving home today I noticed new signs being erected before Kariong exit that traffic will queue on freeway on peak hours, which I thought was a bad sign, sorry for my language. Thaffic was queueing indeed. Both Kariong and Ourimbah exits were just hopeless, but the fact they decided to put signs on tells that road won’t be fixed any soon. Which is even worse, they did not bother to organize a counterflow operation or change traffic lights mode throughout West Gosford. Could you ever imagine that closure of such a second grade road which have never been busy could lead to doubling the trip time from anywhere in Gosford to Sydney and back?

Update 2: Finally, some more concrete info available, thanks to everybody leaving comments here. What is on picture there and in papers does not look good at all and raises the question about the condition of the rest of the hill. They promised to repair it in two months, which I can’t really believe. Will we end up having our own CoalCliff bridge or they’ll convert one of the fire tracks into a proper road?

Update 3: 1st of May, Woy Woy road reopened in one direction only. Did they forget about reversible lanes?

Update 4: 7th of May, Still no signs of any repair works being carried out. It seems 6 month is a bit optimistic

Update 5: 10th of July, More than two months since road is closed, they suddenly decided to perform some “investigative work” and closed it in both directions again. Did not bother to inform residents a few days in advance; seems like the need of further investigation appeared unexpectedly.

Update 5: 11th of July, Almost impossible to believe, but there is some information about yesterday’s closure in federal news: Daily telegraph.

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