Meredith residents push for highway status to be removed and speed dropped after fatal accident

Leeanne Lubcke was awake and due to head to work at 6.07am when she heard the startling bang at the corner of McLeod Street on Tuesday morning.

"I just thought, 'Oh no, not again'," she said.

"It's gut-wrenching.

"It could have been me.

"I was supposed to go to work at Mount Helen (in traffic management) but it was cancelled. I was meant to be driving on that road at that time."

Police are yet to determine the exact cause of the pre-dawn collision.

A white ute and a Holden Commodore sedan suffered front-end damage, while a smaller sedan had badly smashed side panels and a caved-in roof.

Ms Lubcke said residents in the 20-or-so homes on the northern side of the highway had to "make a run for it" when they crossed or drove onto their road, which is also known as Sutherland Street.

"I was talking to our neighbours just this morning and it's literally a case of one of us getting killed one day," she said.

"We're not surprised at all that it's come to this. In the 17 years I've been here, I've seen it all."

Ms Lubcke said Sutherland Street saw accidents every three to six months - and like Tuesday's smash, one of the latest in November also involved a concrete culvert.

The highway through Meredith is a VicRoads declared arterial road.

"The speed limit is 60, but it really needs to be 50 km/h," Ms Lubcke said.

"Even on my GPS, there is no such thing as Sutherland Street. It's called the Midland Highway here and people treat it like a highway. It feels like almost every car here is speeding.

"Really it's not a highway at all. It's a residential street.

"I have five kids living here and I won't let them cross the road by themselves.

"And even when you are in a car, you only have three metres before you're on the bitumen."

Ms Lubcke said one of her children had just gained her licence but was terrified of reversing onto the busy highway.

"My 19-year-old has been asking us to park the car for her. We have to do it backwards, so you can drive out onto the highway forwards - and then make a run for it."

Ms Lubcke believed more signage, a reduced speed limit and more speed cameras were needed, but she was unsure if raised pedestrian crossings and speed humps would work.

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Meredith residents are also upset about drivers taking perceived shortcuts to avoid the main part of town.

McLeod and Read streets are popular 'rat runs' that begin at the Midland and run parallel to each other.

"It's especially bad when school is on and people don't want to stop at the pedestrian crossing on the Midland Highway," she said.

"Going up McLeod or Read streets is not a shortcut at all. It takes just as long."

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She said she had seen more than two dozen accidents on the Read Street corner - with several vehicles smashing into her fence or landing in deep drains and culverts, sometimes obscured by long grass.

"The local copper said we should go to VicRoads with these concerns - and everyone does - but they don't seem to do anything.

"Meredith is really growing but we don't seem to get recognised.

"My message to (Eureka State Labor MP) Michaela Settle and (Ballarat Federal Labor MP) Catherine King would be to please fix this road and class it as residential through Meredith because it's only a mater of time before people like us get killed.

"And if that happens, do I want my kids to have to face that intersection every day?"

She welcomed the idea of a Meredith bypass and the replacement of give-way signs with stop-signs.