Council bid to curb speeding By Alison Noonan

A BUSY Hampton Park street is set to receive road safety improvements in a bid to reduce the number of speeding drivers.
Coral Drive will be considered in the next stage of council funding for the installation of much-needed traffic-calming devices.
The once quiet local road now accepts more than 7000 vehicles a day and has recorded seven “serious injury” and seven “other injury” accidents in the past five years.
River Gum Ward councillor Wayne Smith said the street had a long history of speeding traffic and welcomed any measures to improve safety in the residential area.
“The situation worsened when the Ormond Road connection opened because it was no longer just local traffic using it,” he said.
“However, the numbers were never there to put the road on council’s priority list for traffic calming devices.
“Now it has finally come to the point where the traffic counts have proved there is a problem and it has been put on the waiting list for funding.”
Cr Smith said the road would receive intersection treatments, mid-block treatments and kerb outstands but he was unsure when construction would begin.
“It’s still undetermined when the road will receive the funding, possibly in six to 12 months.
“The residents will definitely feel a little more comfortable when we can finally do some works down there,” he said.
In the meantime, Coral Drive will be included on council’s Speed Awareness Mobile Program and the results of the recent traffic survey will be forwarded to police to consider speed enforcement along the street, Cr Smith said.