POTHOLES, undulating surfaces, and loose stones have wreaked havoc on western Victorian roads for decades, causing vehicle damage and big safety concerns for drivers.

Regional Victorian roads are miles behind their city counterpart, with many drivers feeling as if roads in the south-west are even getting worse.

Hamilton Police section sergeant, Roger McClure said potholes certainly posed a danger to drivers because of the large number of them in the Greater Hamilton area.

Sgt McClure said drivers often become complacent and may fail to drive to the conditions of the road and maintain the recommended speed when the surface was especially rough.

“Potholes are very dangerous because they can contribute to crashes if you’re not aware of them, sometimes there are signs around the area, and so you’ve just got to be aware of them and the people that are fixing them up too,” he said.

The issue of regional road conditions was raised in State Parliament earlier this month when member for western Victoria, Bev McArthur detailed her experience of driving on the Glenelg Highway between Hamilton and Dunkeld.

Ms McArthur slammed the Victorian Government and said not only were the potholes on the road dangerous, but they had caused damage to her vehicle.

A government spokesperson said it understood how important a safe road network was for Regional Victoria.

“We know how important a safe and reliable road network is for Regional Victorian communities – that’s why we’re continuing to make major investments in regional road maintenance,” they said.

“Between now and winter next year, we’re delivering more than 35 individual road maintenance projects across the Southern Grampians Shire, including major rebuilding projects on the Hamilton and Glenelg highways.”

The government has invested $12.95 million over the past two financial years (2019-2021) in rebuilding and resurfacing the Glenelg Highway, including around $230,000 worth of work between Hamilton and Dunkeld.

Ms McArthur said this stretch of road was in disrepair and was incredibly unsafe for both passenger and freight vehicles.

“The potholes are more like craters,” she said.

“It is incredible that a major highway between important regional towns is in this kind of state.

“An ordinary sedan wouldn’t cut it in Regional Victoria these days.

“Our state-managed country roads are fit for weekend adventure trails using four-wheel drives, but little else.

“These roads are not fit for purpose - it’s incredibly serious – fatalities are waiting to happen.

“It’s become an expensive thing to travel country roads - the damage is also adding significantly to the cost of moving produce across our region.

“Avoidable damage to cars and freight transport vehicles caused by bad roads has become a price too great, let alone the risk to life and limb.”

Taylor’s Tyrepower Hamilton owner, Ron Taylor has seen firsthand the impact of poor road quality, with more cars coming in with rim and wheel damage than ever before.

Mr Taylor said while customers bring often brought their wheels in for repairs after hitting potholes, it was common to find previously undetected damage when conducting a routine rotation.

“Damage to wheels from potholes with rims and buggered tyres at least once to twice a week - people say they’ve hit a pothole, and the next day they bring it in, and (they’ve) got a cracked or bent rim,” he said.

“It’s got worse and worse over time; it used to be once a month about four years ago.”

Lowan MP, Emma Kealy, is currently travelling around her electoral district for her annual listening tour and said the issue of roads was raised several times throughout her tour, with primary school in Hamilton even mentioning it.

Ms Kealy said Regional Victorian’s relied more heavily on the roads because they travelled more than Melburnians, but that regional roads continued to fall behind.

“At the moment, the roads are the worst that I’ve ever seen … in many areas, we’ve got sections of road strips that have crumbling edges to the point where you actually can’t see the lines at the edge of the road - it’s very dangerous, particularly when you get heavy loads on the road that may shift and also throw up stones … and hitting windscreens,” she said.

“We actually rely so heavily on our roads in the country that it is more important that government put not just our fair share, but we need to catch up now, so we need our fair share of funding ongoing, but we also need to see better roads being built.”

Ms Kealy also said the government needed to focus on regional areas because they have fallen so far behind that they are constantly playing catch up with more potholes large stretches of roads added to the long list of roads to fix each winter.

The government also said works were scheduled for a major road rebuilding project on the Glenelg Highway at Coleraine early next year, with seven further projects scheduled along the highway between now and July.