Regulars of Casey Central Shopping Centre have expressed their frustrations over new traffic fixtures intended to increase road safety — with many saying it’s achieving the opposite.
Several bright yellow mini roundabouts have been installed in Casey Central carpark at key intersections as a means to help vehicles slow down and improve visibility.
According to the centre manager, Linda Lauder, the decision to install the mini roundabouts followed traffic audits and recommendations from specialised traffic engineers, aimed at improving traffic flow and enhancing customer safety.
With the works completed on Sunday 22 February, Casey Central announced in a social media post that the new changes were designed to reduce congestion during peak times, improve safety for pedestrians and drivers and slow traffic through busy areas.
Shell Dargent, a regular at Casey Central says she incurred damage to her car as she tried to get around the roundabout which left yellow markings on her tyre.
“I now have yellow paint on my wheels and I only drive a ford V8 and I couldn’t get around, I even reversed up,” she said.
On another occurrence, Shell witnessed a car hit a pole as the driver tried not to make contact with the roundabout, an incident she says, was “a direct result” of the new fixtures.
“This poor man with a small car was trying to do the right thing and go around it (roundabout) but in doing that, his front left side of the car hit a pole and broke his headlight.” she said.
Following an inquiry by Star News, Ms Lauder said that the roundabouts are intended to be ‘rollover’, meaning larger or longer vehicles can drive over the new fixtures.
“The roundabouts are designed for low speed environments, larger standard vehicles can safely overrun the roundabouts at low speed, and whilst smaller vehicles can overrun the roundabout, they are not required to do so to safely navigate around them,” Ms Lauder said.
Becky, who owns a Kia Carnival couldn’t get around the roundabout either without doing a three-point turn, with cars behind her waiting, she says it’s creating a bigger hazard.
“It’s just silly,” she said.
“I don’t really know why they thought this would be a good idea.”
“It’s so dangerous because I couldn’t even get around the roundabout, those cars had to wait for me to back up.
“Make it make sense,” she added.
Another shopper, Paul, who owns a low sitting ute, avoided the roundabout, instead he drove to the far side of the car park.
He told Star News that even if he tried to get around it or drove over it, it “would cause some damage to my tyre.”
While some shoppers said the roundabouts make manoeuvring around the carparks tighter, they did ultimately support the road safety measures the centre was taking.
“I think it helps everybody slow down, so I don’t mind it,” said a worker who did not want to be named.
Paul said he doesn’t dispute that people need to drive slower in the car park, but that the roundabouts weren’t the solution.
“Repainting the already existent white lines and giveaway signs would’ve been a better solution I think,” said Paul.
When asked if the centre would take on this feedback from its customers, Casey Central said that they recognise “change takes times”, specifically for regulars who are already familiar with the space.
