Calls are growing for a review of the reversible lane system on the Sydney Harbor Bridge after two men died after crashing on the infamous “suicide lane”.
In the vision of the horrific accident, a blue Hyundai i30 is seen traveling in the outside northbound lane swerving into oncoming traffic in the inside southbound lane.
The car crashed into a white Hyundai Accent around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, causing two deaths and several injuries, including an expectant mother.
A growing chorus of Australians is questioning the safety of the bridge’s reversible lane system, which alters the flow of northbound and southbound traffic.
The direction of lane four, better known to Sydneysiders as the “death” or “suicide” lane, typically reverses after rush hour traffic each morning before returning to the northbound lanes on the late.
A green mark or a red cross on the lanes indicates which ones can be used; However, dozens of motorists said they made sure to avoid the infamous “death lane.”
‘How tragic. I drive in that lane regularly. I hate it. They call it ‘suicide lane’ for obvious reasons. May those poor people rest in peace,” one person wrote online.
“The configuration of the Harbor Bridge has always been very dangerous with the proximity of oncoming traffic in the center lanes,” a second shared.
Red crosses and green markings (circled in red) indicate which lanes are available to drivers traveling north and southbound on the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
A blue Hyundia i30 is seen crossing into the southbound lane in footage of the fatal crash.
‘A third wrote: ‘I hate those lanes on the bridge. Every time I drive, I stay in the outside lane, I never use the inside lane, I always think it’s an accident waiting to happen and today it happened tragically.”
Many agreed that safety barriers or concrete bollards needed to be installed on the bridge between northbound and southbound traffic.
Others wanted to eliminate the reversible lane system entirely.
“Various lanes without a concrete physical barrier like those on Victorian roads are simply dangerous,” one woman wrote.
‘That’s why these roads are so stupid. Do you really trust that people drive at highway speeds with no median and lanes that change direction so you have to look at the lights above the road? said another in reference to the tick and cross system.
Crews arrived at the scene and found a man dead in the rubble.
The driver of another vehicle had to be freed from the twisted metal by firefighters, before dying a short time later.
Cleanups and investigations on the bridge paralyzed traffic throughout the city on Thursday.
Acting City of Sydney Superintendent Clayton McDonald said it appeared a vehicle traveling northbound veered “for some unknown reason” into the southbound lanes, causing a first collision and then several more collisions.
All traffic on the southbound bridge was stopped and only one northbound lane remained open, causing traffic chaos in the city Thursday afternoon.
Police were working to notify next of kin of the two men who died in the crash and both have not yet been formally identified.