![\"Hume](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/hume-highway-in-nsw-4MA3T7ROFZEC7JLOUV5N3EDMYI.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMotorists have warned of the deadly risks of stepping foot on high-speed roadways after two women lost their lives trying to help an injured kangaroo.<\/p>\n
The women were struck and killed on the Hume Highway at Craigieburn in Melbourne’s outer north last night.<\/p>\n
Road policing assistant commissioner Glenn Weir said the pair were driving towards the city when they hit a kangaroo and stopped to assist it.<\/p>\n
Police believed another vehicle travelling in the same direction did not see their car until the “last minute” and swerved to avoid it, hitting the women at high speed.<\/p>\n
A 30-year-old Beveridge woman died at the scene, while a 30-year-old Thomastown woman was flown to hospital and later died.<\/p>\n
The driver stayed at the scene and assisted police.<\/p>\n
Weir said the section of the freeway was a dark area at night.<\/p>\n
He said everyone wants to stop and help injured animals but reminded motorists of the dangers of doing so. <\/p>\n
“It’s inherently dangerous to be on the roadway particularly at night … and drizzly conditions,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne this morning.<\/p>\n
“You’ve just got to really consider your surroundings.<\/p>\n
“Terrible for the person driving behind, who struck them, (and) other people on the freeway who saw what happened.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hume Highway in NSW. (Source: Google Maps)<\/p>\n
The road policing head appeared at a parliamentary inquiry into wildlife road strikes on Monday.<\/p>\n
As well as promoting driver education and public awareness, the inquiry is investigating road strike-related major trauma incidents.<\/p>\n
The Craigieburn crash continues a horror week on Victoria’s roads, with nine people losing their lives in four days.<\/p>\n
Three of those killed were pedestrians, three were motorcyclists and three were in vehicles.<\/p>\n
The state’s road toll has lifted to 205 deaths, 11 more than at the same time in 2024.<\/p>\n
Weir said road fatalities had fluctuated over the first eight months of 2025.<\/p>\n
“We’ve had four months this year well under average, four months well over average,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The commonality is that there’s really no commonality.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Motorists have warned of the deadly risks of stepping foot on high-speed roadways after two women lost their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1081,50,85,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-3182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-accident","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}