A two-car crash on the Calder Highway over the grand final long weekend occurred at a site police have described as a "notorious blackspot".
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A car carrying a family of four collided with another vehicle on Sunday when its driver failed to give way at the intersection of Fogarty's Gap Road and the Calder Highway in Ravenswood South.
The family's vehicle rolled, trapping the 38-year-old female driver for almost an hour.
The incident also left the woman’s four-year-old son with a suspected leg fracture.
Northbound traffic was halted for more than one hour while emergency services worked to clear the scene.
Leading Senior Constable Peter Wall from the Macedon Ranges highway patrol said officers attended several incidents at the intersection in recent years.
"The intersection itself is a notorious blackspot intersection, and as a result, the speed limit has been reduced for quite some time there to 80 kilometres an hour," LSC Wall said.
Unlike the $86 million Ravenswood interchange upgrade located just minutes away, the Fogarty’s Gap Road intersection is not one of the 20,000 sites identified as dangers in the federal government’s blackspot programme.
Currently under construction, the interchange was once dubbed “arguably the most dangerous intersection anywhere in Victoria” by former Premier Denis Napthine.
But Facebook followers of the Bendigo Advertiser pondered why more money was not being directed to the scene of Sunday’s rollover. face
LSC Walls also said the Fogarty’s Gap Road site was well-signed and believed it was the driver's unfamiliarity with the road, and fatigue from driving long distances, that were the major causes of the crash.
Inattention was also to blame.
“It could've been a lot worse,” the police officer said.
A 38-year-old male and six-year-old girl in the offending vehicle both escaped injury, as did the 68-year-old driver of the car struck.
The officer warned motorists police patrolled the area regularly.
LSC Wall said behaviour on the roads over the grand final weekend was otherwise quite good, with the Calder crash his region’s most serious incident.
Police were called to two other incidents on the Calder over the weekend.
The air ambulance was called to Wycheproof on Sunday afternoon following a two-car collision that left one man fighting head injuries.
A drug- or alcohol-affected driver veered off the Calder at Marong on Saturday.
Traffic was interrupted in Kangaroo Flat on Sunday afternoon when a truck became lodged under the Chapel Street bridge.