Safety
The Pacific Highway is one of the most dangerous and deadly stretches of road in Australia. Between 1995 and 2009, over 400 people died on the highway. In 1989, two separate bus crashes, the Grafton bus crash (in which 20 people died) and the Kempsey bus crash (in which 35 died), led to the deaths of 55 people on the highway, two of the worst road accidents in Australia's history. In 2009 thus far, 20 people have died on the Pacific Highway. It is estimated that perhaps over 10,000 people have been injured on the highway throughout its history.
Much of the danger of the Pacific Highway lies in the fact that it contains long stretches of undivided road along which all types of vehicles, including private automobiles, buses, vans and trucks, simultaneously travel at speeds approaching and in excess of 100 km/h. Being undivided, there is a very high risk of head-on collisions. In more recent years, state and federal governments have begun to fund an upgrade to a fully divided highway along its entire length.
Read more about this topic: Pacific Highway (Australia)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)