The other day I wrote about my journey to Bedourie, the last dangerous half hour or so in the dark was a slow grind as cattle, clearly enjoying the heat of the bitumen, gathered on the road.
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They were almost impossible to see until you come right up on them, a problem that is prevalent on all roads in the region.
One solution is to not drive at drive which while sensible, is not always practicable.
Investment in large bulls bars is another option though I’m not sure they would fully absorb the impact and in any case the law says the fault is always with the driver (I almost wrote ‘drover’ which is perhaps more appropriate here) in any accident with stock.
I saw a much better idea in my usual trawling of the world wide web’s treasures the other day.
India, like north-west Queensland, is full of cattle on the road, though for different reasons as they are venerated in the mainly Hindi society.
But venerated or not, a lot are killed on the road and there are occasionally tragic consequences for humans too.
It seems one enterprising local police force in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, fed up with dealing with continual accidents between cattle and traffic, has come up with a solution to the problem.
The police in the town of Khargone have started a drive of sticking night-glow radium tapes on stray cattle and slow-moving bullock carts that cause accidents on highways of the district.
More than a thousand radium reflectors have been stuck on bullock carts and on cattle.
The reflective tapes ensure long-distance visibility and have high standard reflectivity and the glow of radium can be seen from a distance of more than a kilometer, even in dusty conditions.
It would probably be a huge and expensive undertaking to tag every beast in north-west Queensland but cattle on the road is a major problem here.
Cattle either seem to like the heat of the bitumen or the often fresh pick they can eat by the side of highways.
Traffic zooms along the Flinders Hwy at 100kph at night despite the flashing warning signs of cattle on the road. It’s a wonder there aren’t more accidents. DB