Venturato, John Ernest
Deceased
John Ernest Venturato
Demographics
69y, male
Date of death
2005-09-06
Finding date
2008-12-22
Cause of death
Severe head injury due to a motor vehicle accident
AI-generated summary
John Venturato, a 69-year-old man driving on the Bruce Highway in Queensland, collided head-on with a wide load (a house 8.9m wide) being transported north at approximately 5:30am on 6 September 2005. He was killed instantly. The coroner could not determine the precise cause of the collision but identified several contributing factors: inadequate visibility in fog, insufficient spacing between escort vehicles reducing driver reaction time, inadequate warning signage and lighting effectiveness, glare from excessive lighting, and lack of formal training for police escort officers. The coroner emphasised that other drivers that morning experienced significant difficulty identifying the load and its extent, with several narrowly avoiding collision. Recommendations included developing traffic safety management plans for wide loads that effectively block roads, using more informative signage for very wide loads, reviewing lighting practices to minimise glare, improving spacing between escort vehicles, and implementing formal training for escort personnel.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Error types
Contributing factors
- Reduced visibility due to patchy fog
- Inadequate spacing between police escort vehicle and wide load reducing reaction time
- Inadequate distance between pilot vehicle and police escort vehicle
- Unclear or insufficient warning signs and gesturing
- Glare from excessive lighting on wide load and escort vehicles
- Lack of formal training for police escort officers in wide load procedures
- Absence of traffic safety management plan with identified safe stopping points
- Continued escort operation in low visibility conditions approaching visibility thresholds
Coroner's recommendations
- A traffic safety management plan be developed and distributed to all escort members before the escort takes place and that plan be required as part of the permit process where the wide load effectively blocks the road to other road users
- The procedures and permit conditions from Main Roads and Queensland Police Service be more explicit when describing the risk of transporting a wide load on a two lane road
- More informative signs be used when transporting very wide loads (over 5 m) on two lane rural lanes in Queensland
- More attention be given to the appropriate spacing between the first pilot vehicle, police vehicles and the wide load while the escort is underway, with this aspect included in any training given to police officers
- The lighting practices be reviewed to demonstrate if issues of glare are likely to be a problem for drivers, particularly older drivers
- The QPS and Queensland Transport review whether existing notification procedures should be reconsidered regarding stopping vehicles from opposing directions and securing sections of road
- The Queensland Police Service consider enforcing set rest periods for officers undertaking special duties to ensure decisions are not influenced by fatigue
- The Queensland Police Service and Queensland Transport review procedures for transporting wide indivisible loads on two lane rural roads and make distinctions in risk matrices between wide loads on two lane roads versus wider roads
- Queensland Transport consider efficient and effective delivery of Performance Guidelines and critical roadmaps to rural professionals, ensuring accessibility beyond internet delivery alone
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