A Melbourne family has witnessed what no parents should ever see – the death of their child, after a car fatally hit their toddler.
Police said the two-year-old was waiting to cross the road with his father, when he was hit and killed by a passing ute in front of horrified family members.
The incident occurred on Stud Road in Dandenong North at about midday on Sunday.
Emergency services performed CPR, but were unable to save the child.
Family members could be seen crying at the scene and were being consoled by police.
Senior Sergeant Dave Hewatt said the scene was traumatic and the family was “very upset.”
“Obviously involving a young child it is pretty traumatic and no one wants to attend that but as with most collisions it is always pretty confronting,” Sergeant Hewatt said.
“At this stage we have the driver of the vehicle and he is providing us with the information for that to clarify what has happened. At this stage we are not in a position to determine how the accident has actually occurred.”
“The family was nearby and are also providing us with information regarding what has occurred,” he said.
“The family has provided us with some information but they are very upset, very traumatised by what has occurred, so we try to give them some time to process what happened.”
“We are trying to work out if it was simply an accident. There are indicators that say it is an accident but we want to make sure we are ticking everything off,” he explained.
The 60-year-old driver from Gippsland is assisting police and is not in custody.
The exact circumstances of the fatal collision are yet to be determined.
Stud Road is a high speed, high volume road that links several southeastern suburbs to Melbourne CBD.
Locals have told The Herald Sun the intersection does not have an adequate crossing for pedestrians and is well known for speeding cars and crashes.
Residents have been petitioning to have Stud Road’s speed limit reduced from 80km/h to 60km/h due to safety concerns.
Since June 2015 to June 2020, 22 accidents have occurred on Stud Road between Dunbarton Drive and Heatherton Road – 12 crashes caused serious injury and two people tragically lost their lives.
In response, Victoria’s Department of Transport and Planning has since installed safety barriers along the road to reduce the risk of run-off-road and head-on crashes.
“The guard rails are there to protect pedestrians and provide them with the places they can cross the road but whether this was a factor here, we don’t know,” Sergeant Hewatt said.
But residents say this is not enough.
“They have installed these barriers but the issue is there is no visibility of cars over the boundaries,” a resident told The Herald Sun. “Even if people don’t die, there are always collisions here.”
Another resident shared: “It’s not the first time a child has been hit out here. Unfortunately it’s happened before.”
“We’ve even asked for a pedestrian crossing but the council said no because they have traffic lights near the basketball stadium.”
So far this year there have been 281 deaths on Victoria’s roads, which is up nearly 21 per cent when compared to last year, according to Transport Accident Commission data.
Car accidents were the most common cause of death among children aged one to 14 and is the second-biggest killer of Australians aged 15 to 25.