THE victim of a crash at the same intersection that claimed a life two days earlier said his brother’s warning about the road prevented another death.
Tim Robinson was driving his Toyota Hiace van 20 km/h below the speed limit on the Murray Valley Highway on Saturday because his brother Damien had told him there were frequently crashes on the road.
Damien Robinson, of Wodonga, said he often heard of crashes at the intersection.
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“This time it was nearly my brother’s life,” he said.
“It’s just not good enough that everyone’s approaching this intersection at 100 km/h and there are give way signs here.
“B-double trucks come along here at 100 km/h, it’s just deadly and I warned my brother, I warned him numerous times.
“I warned him and warned him, and probably because I warned him, he’s alive.”
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Two days earlier a Urana man, 32, died after his Corolla hit the back of a stationary ute at the same intersection where Tim Robinson crashed into a Mitsubishi Magna at 1.45pm on Saturday.
The Magna, carrying five people, rolled onto the highway from the Howlong-Barnawartha intersection.
Although he was travelling at 80 km/h rather than 100 km/h, Mr Robinson’s van, which was towing a caravan, still hit the Magna with force.
“It’s a straight out fail to give way,” Sen-Constable Julie Morris, of Wodonga police, said.
Both Mr Robinson and his daughter Tameeka, 15, who was sitting in the passenger’s seat, were not injured.
But the driver of the Magna, a Corowa man in his 80s, was knocked unconscious and sustained a shoulder injury.
His wife, 78, was in the front passenger’s seat and suffered neck and chest pains.
They were both taken to Albury Base Hospital in a stable condition.
Their daughter, grandson and great-granddaughter, who were sitting in the back seat, were unharmed.
Sen-Constable Morris said it was fortunate the grandson was a doctor and could begin treating his grandparents at the scene.
After the crash, Mr Robinson called for a change to the intersection, and said there should be stop signs installed on the Howlong-Barnawartha Road.
“I reckon if somebody had been going faster than what I was it would have been a fatality,” Mr Robinson, from Aspendale, said.
Sen-Constable Morris agreed the speed Mr Robinson was travelling decreased the severity of the crash.
“That has certainly affected the injuries that anybody has sustained,” she said.
Mr Robinson recalled looking the driver of the Magna in the eye as he slammed on his brakes about 15 metres from where they collided.
“I don’t think he noticed that I was there at all even though that (the van) was a large object,” he said.
“That intersection should be made so it’s a T-intersection not a 45-degree, everywhere there’s an intersection where it’s on an angle like that people can’t see back that way and they pull out.
“I still can’t believe Tameeka’s fine when you look at her side of the van, the windscreen’s smashed, the door’s all bent, that side of the van’s all smashed in.
“But everybody’s alive, that’s a good sign, who cares that the cars are smashed and the holidays are wrecked.”
Mr Robinson had been camping for three weeks at Shaws Flat near Rutherglen with family and friends and was driving to his brother Damien’s motel in Wodonga.
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