Freeway ban

Police stop truckies from using Burns Peak road

 

By ANGELINE KARIUS

 

HEAVILY loaded trucks and semi-trailers will be banned from using the Poreporena Freeway in Port Moresby as police and transport authorities review the use of the freeway by other types of heavy vehicles, The National reports.

The ban order was issued by acting deputy police commissioner and operations commander Fred Yakasa.

It followed a road second accident inless than a week involving a heavy vehicle along the Burns Peak section of the freeway – a steep downhill section that connect downtown Port Moresby CBD and the wharf with the rest of the city's industrial, commercial, administrative and residential suburbs as well as Jackson International Airport.

Although no casualties were reported in the Tuesday night accident, it happened several hundred metres from the Konedobu police headquarters.

However, last Wednesday, another heavy vehicle caused a fatal accident in the same area, nearer to the busy SVS supermarket, in which two people were killed and several others injured.

The accident spot in this area has come to be known as the "deadman's corner" by city residents.

During the past two years, at least 13 people, both motorists and pedestrians, had been killed as a result of mechanical failures by mostly heavy vehicles.

Acting police commissioner Tony Wagambie was understood to have written to the road transport board and the PNG Road Safety Council to review and impose laws aimed at stopping heavy vehicles from using Poreporena Freeway – either downhill at speed or at a snail's pace up the Burns Peak.

"Police will put up road blocks at the Hohola and Konedobu roundabouts to divert trucks and semi trailers from accessing the freeway," Yakasa said.

"The roadblocks will begin from 5am to 9pm beginning (immediately) to monitor the roads until an alternate route is sorted out by relevant authorities," he said, adding that people's lives were more valuable and were irreplaceable and must be protected at all cost.