{"id":924683,"date":"2026-10-11T21:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T21:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/924683\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T21:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T21:58:16","slug":"potholes-victoria-if-i-get-hurt-i-wont-recover-motorcycle-rider-62-fears-for-life-over-deadly-pothole-riddled-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/924683\/","title":{"rendered":"Potholes Victoria: \u2018If I get hurt, I won\u2019t recover\u2019: Motorcycle rider, 62, fears for life over deadly pothole-riddled road"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exclusive: A Victorian motorcyclist who has been riding for over 40 years says he is ready to hang up his helmet after a near-death experience on a pothole-riddled highway.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ballarat man Stewart Macdonald, 62, travels up and down Victoria\u2019s Western Highway during weekly visits to Melbourne and is \u201cconstantly\u201d scanning the road for deadly craters.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Stewart Macdonald has been riding for over 40 years. But the pothole crisis is making him consider changing his mode of transport.\u00a0Stewart Macdonald<\/p>\n

The road is notorious for potholes and has become a hot-button issue for riders and motorists alike following the tragic death of Peter \u201cTiki\u201d Mason, 71<\/a>, who was killed on the highway after striking a pothole in September.<\/p>\n

Macdonald was riding along the Western Highway near Ballan toward Ballarat on a rainy August evening when he met a pothole he couldn\u2019t avoid.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the rain, you actually can\u2019t see the depth of a pothole because it\u2019s just a big puddle,\u201d he told nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hit this thing, and it kicked the bike sideways, I did a massive fishtail, left, right, left\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a car travelling behind me and he just slammed on the brakes, I thought he was going to run me up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macdonald briefly considered leaping off the bike as it swerved out of control.<\/p>\n

As a seasoned rider, he was able to collect himself and eventually right his vintage Harley.<\/p>\n

But it was a \u201cbone crunching\u201d hit to his bike \u2013 and his confidence.<\/p>\n

Macdonald is semi-retired and is looking forward to enjoying his full retirement in Ballarat.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t want a pothole to derail these plans or cut his life tragically short.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This pothole on the Western Highway near Wallace was reported by a local on August 21.\u00a0Snap Send Solve<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a big enough scare… I\u2019m 62. If I get hurt at this age, I won\u2019t recover well,\u201d Macdonald said. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe I sell the bike. Because I\u2019m up and down that highway most weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was unable to report the pothole due to uncertainty over its exact location.<\/p>\n

Nine.com.au has asked the Victorian Department of Transport if a pothole has been patched up in this area.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeriously, if you stopped and reported every pothole on the way, you\u2019d never get there,\u201d Macdonald added.<\/p>\n

The 258-kilometre-long Western Highway is a hotbed for dangerously large potholes.<\/p>\n

Reports of potholes on the same highway have increased since Mason\u2019s death on September 13.<\/p>\n

Exclusive data shared to nine.com.au from Snap Send Solve founder Danny Gorog found reports of 11 separate potholes along the Western Highway between September 14 and now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s nearly four times as many as the same weeks last year. It brings the total for 2026 to 114, compared with 27 at the same point in 2025,\u201d Gorog said.<\/p>\n

One resident reported potholes \u201cat least every one kilometre\u201d on the road between Wallace and Ballan.<\/p>\n

Another pothole near Bacchus Marsh, Ballarat-bound, was described as \u201csufficient to cause accident for motorcyclists\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Potholes on the Western Highway near Wallace captured on a driver\u2019s dashcam.\u00a0Snap Send Solve<\/p>\n

A Wallace local reported a pothole near Macdonald\u2019s incident on August 21, describing it was \u201cmassive\u201d and only \u201cone of the scores of potholes between Ballan to Ballarat\u201d.<\/p>\n

This pothole was reported as \u201csolved\u201d in the app.<\/p>\n

In September, Gorog found that there had been 310 reports of potholes along the same highway over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n

In period between September 2025 and September 2026, pothole reports on the state-managed Western Highway between Trawalla and Melbourne exploded by 128 per cent.<\/p>\n

Mason\u2019s death on the state-managed road sparked a strong response from the Victorian government.<\/p>\n

Premier Ben Carroll reiterated his earlier promise of $352 million in funding to double the number of potholes fixed by January 2027.<\/p>\n

Carroll also pledged to double the pothole repair target from 250,000 to 500,000.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Victoria\u2019s\u00a0Department of Transport and Planning told nine.com.au that crews regularly inspect the Western Highway and that the pothole that Macdonald encountered had been fixed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur road repair blitz is doubling the number of potholes filled,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

Founder of the newly minted The West Party in Victoria and candidate for Werribee Paul Hopper said road maintenance and potholes are a key election issue for thousands of voters in his electorate.<\/p>\n

He told nine.com.au the potholes \u201cneed to be corrected as an absolute priority\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just horrible, I worry for our motorcycle-riding cohort out there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s years of neglect, clearly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever much money of bitumen went into the West Gate tunnel should have gone into the bitumen in the potholes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macdonald said it was disappointing that the state government has only taken action in the months before the Victorian election.<\/p>\n

He claimed potholes on the highway have been troubling drivers and riders for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not an issue this week or last week. It\u2019s been ongoing for four or five years, and it\u2019s getting really bad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exclusive: A Victorian motorcyclist who has been riding for over 40 years says he is ready to hang…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":924684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-924683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}