Over the past five years there have been 81 accidents: resulting in one fatality and 133 injuries. Just five involved heavy vehicles.

These findings were compiled and presented by the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) at two recently held community meetings in Bellingen.

The consultation is part of a broader Waterfall Way Rd review that aims to investigate and identify if there are short-term and medium-term safety strategies that can be proposed in response to the increased number of truck movements from local quarries.

In addition to crash statistics gathered over the 40km Waterfall Way stretch, the RMS also presented estimates of the number of truck and dog movements expected as the Nambucca to Urunga Pacific Highway upgrade progresses.

The peak movements from EMS Quarry at Dorrigo are expected from October this year to July 2015. It’s believed that approximately 20,000 tonnes per month will be carted down the mountain by 600 loaded trucks. This will account for 3.8 per cent of all vehicle movements along the road over a period of five days per week. These estimates, however, do not reflect the current Development Application (DA) approvals, which allow for an average of 80 trips per day from Dorrigo quarry and the additional 20 loads per day or 40 trips per day from Hernani quarry.

This means that a total of 120 trips per day, or if curtailed to a five day week, 140 truck and dog vehicle movements per day.

It is also noted that these figures do not include the possible ramifications that the DA for increased extraction at Hernani would have.

A spokesperson from the RMS said, “Roads and Maritime Services is committed to improving safety on Waterfall Way for all road users and will continue to work with the community and stakeholders to investigate possible improvements.

“At the two community meetings held last week, the safety review team advised attendees peak truck movements are expected from October this year to July next year with an average of 30 loaded movements on week days.

“Truck and dog combinations are expected to make up about 3.8 per cent of total week day traffic during the peak period.

“All aspects of safety will be examined during the review and the findings will be used to help develop a strategy to improve road safety.”

The jury is still out as to what this all means for the existing Waterfall Way users as the RMS is still collecting and compiling traffic count data from 12 locations along Waterfall Way. The final report will be ready by the end of the month.

The meetings also presented results from the community feedback sessions. There were 119 submissions recorded, with the majority highlighting road safety concerns.

RMS has published information presented at the meetings on the project website: www.rms.nsw.gov.au/roadprojects/projects/north_eastern_region/waterfall_way/project_documents.html.