Funding allocated but not yet spent in efforts to divert trucks away from Main Street, Rutherglen, must now go towards traffic calming measures, a longtime campaigner says.
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Indigo councillor Roberta Horne started a petition to this effect a month ago but it's "moved up a gear" in the wake of Friday's truck crash that damaged property and cut power to businesses.
The petition to Victorian Minister for Roads and Road Safety Melissa Horne (no relation) calls for the balance of the $2 million already put aside to be "fully invested in best practice traffic calming devices".
It requests pedestrian crossings with signals at the post office and newsagent and wombat crossings at each end of Main Street, as well as the release of the Rutherglen origin and destination study already undertaken.
The narrow thoroughfare, part of Murray Valley Highway, has raised concerns for years, with little room for heavy trucks to travel safely through.
Cr Horne has been advocating for a solution since 2016.
She was grateful Friday's incident was no worse, pointing to the beer garden tragedy in Daylesford and the death of Wodonga crossing supervisor Brian Beach.
"Please don't make us wait for a tragedy to happen," she said.
"I lose sleep over it, I honestly lose sleep over it."
A $4 million planning study on a heavy vehicle alternative route had been jointly funded by the Victorian and Commonwealth governments, but the federal funding was one of 12 projects terminated in November.
Residents 'so extremely aware' of risks
Resident Dave Valentine said everyone who lived in the town were "so extremely aware" of the risk.
"You can actually tell a Rutherglen local by the fact they will not go outside the area of their car to get in when there's a truck coming, they always stay back inside the line of the car," he said.
"The road is way too narrow.
"I've stood in the Main Street watching the legally extra-wide unescorted semi-trailers somehow managing to avoid knocking their mirrors off to get past each other going in the opposite direction.
"And the only way to do it is to time it in a gap where there's not a parked car."
Cr Horne said some people blamed Indigo Council for the lack of progress in fixing the issue, but really the matter lay with state road authorities, which "had so many changes of personnel ... so every time it's like they start again".
A Department of Transport and Planning spokesperson said: "We recognise and share the community's desire to improve the flow of traffic for heavy vehicles in North East Victoria."
"We'll continue to work with Indigo Shire Council on initiatives to improve road safety in the Rutherglen township."
In the past 10 years, there have been six crashes between Butler and Hamilton streets, either end of Main Street, one of which caused serious injury.
Cr Horne's petition, which has about 300 signatures so far, aims to gather at least 2000 names.
"Our speed humps are actually spray painted onto the road, it's an insult to our intelligence, it's totally unacceptable, so let's get serious," she said.
"Why do we have to wait for a disaster?"
