A LOCAL farmer is calling for drivers – particularly truckies – to take more care on the Casterton Dartmoor Road, after a truck tipped near the Killara Bridge.

While the cause of the incident has not been determined, third generation Pieracle farmer, Luke Balkin said Thursday’s crash was not the first he had seen on the windy section of road, adjacent to the bridge and after witnessing traffic on the road every day, he had his suspicions about contributing factors.

Mr Balkin said the designated speed limit – while perfectly legal - was still too fast for some large vehicles to safely navigate the stretch, even in ideal, dry conditions.

“The road surface is perfectly fine, there’s nothing wrong with the road surface, no loose gravel at all … (but) there’s the sweeping bends, they tried to take that bend out of the road when they put the new bridge in, replaced that rickety old bridge,” he said.

“Back in the day when it was a skinny road, it was really dangerous … it’s a lot better to drive along now but it can easily catch you out.”

Mr Balkin said a truck had come to grief in a similar fashion just two hundred metres away, in a previous incident and last Thursday he had been working on a nearby fenceline, just prior to the crash, when he witnessed worrying behaviour by two transport drivers.

“The crash is the second I’ve come across on the road within 200 metres of each other,” Mr Balkin said.

“(Last Thursday) I was working away and saw two trucks going along there, tail-gaiting each other and they were flying up the road … it just beggars belief,” he said.

“It looks like another truck slid off the road the day after that crash too, his tracks have gone off the other side of the road at the Wildhorse Flat corner – lucky it didn’t dip over.

“Truck drivers need to slow down, they travel the road every day, it’s not like it is something new.

“Our worry is that it’s putting somebody else’s life at risk, besides the truck driver.”

The condition of the driver involved in Thursday’s incident, is unknown.

Glenelg Highway pile-up

EMERGANCY services were already busy on Thursday morning, after a multiple-vehicle incident on the Glenelg Highway, just east of Casterton.

Casterton Police Sergeant, Tracie Kelly said members were called to the scene around 8.45am.

She said a Penshurst man had been travelling away from Casterton, towing a small trailer, when he failed to correctly negotiate the bend at the top of the cutting, just outside the town limits; it appears the driver over-corrected in trying to return to the road, causing the trailer to jack-knife.

Before emergency services could attend the scene for traffic control, a second and third vehicle had entered the scene, unaware of the incident ahead, due to the blind corner, colliding with the first vehicle.

No one was injured in the incident.