Police have interviewed the driver at the centre of a tragic crash that killed five people in the regional Victorian town of Daylesford, but no charges have been laid.
Man that’s an unfortunate situation, but at what point does a diabetic that can go into shock should not be behind a wheel? Epileptics already get barred from driving after an episode, maybe we need to broaden these types restrictions.
I expect it'll depend on the probabilities involved. Any driver could run over something on the road that blows a front tire and send the car into a scene like this. Super low odds but could happen to anyone. If the odds are similarly low for diabetes sufferers, that could answer your question.
(I'm just some guy on the Internet, I don't know any of this for sure)
Blowing a tire is unlikely to cause this level of loss of control at residential speeds. It also wouldn't make the car speed up and the driver could hit the brakes.
if you have a medical condition and you drive, you're taking other peoples lives in your hands. I have been cleared to drive for a long time, but it would not be right as I know I'm never 100% in control behind the wheel. anything less is accepting responsibility for the outcome.
This is terrible for all involved. Even if the driver did everything right and couldn't have foreseen this, he will still always be the guy who ploughed into a bunch of families and kids.
I wonder if there was any way this was preventable, or just an extremely unlucky situation?
Luck favours the prepared.
Yes - it was unlucky, but it was also preventable... for starters, it seems pretty silly to have an outdoor beer garden adjacent to a roundabout where five streets all meet and two of them have cars travelling directly towards the beer garden (and two of the other five are close enough to the same direction that, if they lost control, they could also hit the beer garden).
It's easy to see that risk in hindsight, but it's also possible to foresee it, if you do a proper risk assessment, and put mitigations in place (bollards, for example).
I'm kind of wondering if the beer garden had any permits.
Vicroads is one of the biggest objector to planning permits in this state. One example is Moon Dog World Footscray, which wasn't allowed to start building their brewery until measures to address the risk of a crash into the beer garden were addressed.