RESIDENTS have slammed a lack of a pedestrian crossing outside Griffith Central after every mother's worst nightmare became a reality for one woman on Monday.
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The woman was seen cradling her daughter in her arms outside the plaza as they waited for an ambulance after the five-year-old was hit when she ran onto the road.
She was taken to Griffith Base Hospital in a serious, but stable condition and was later flown to Westmead Children’s hospital with a serious fracture to her lower left leg.
Mother of two Natasha Firebrace said a pedestrian crossing outside the plaza was long overdue.
“There are two main roads there and not one crossing,” she said.
“Kids are unpredictable, we all try to do the best we can but as we can see from what happened yesterday children can get ahead.
“No one in the community wants to see this happen again, that poor mother and that poor driver.”
Simon Croce, chair of council’s transport committee, said council had lobbied for crossings in the area for a long period of time but the requests had been denied by Roads and Maritime Services.
“We have pushed for it before and we received a big no from the RMS because it doesn’t meet their criteria of so many vehicles per hour versus so many pedestrians,” he said.
“We wanted a pedestrian crossing across from Mackay’s over to the plaza and then one in front of the plaza itself, we have asked two or three times for this and we get the same response every time.”
Cr Croce said the lack of pedestrian crossing had been a point of frustration for him and other committee members.
He said Monday’s incident highlighted the potential for tragedy if the situation was not fixed.
“You don’t count the near misses in figures like that, they don’t get recorded and it’s like they never happened,” he said.
“But they did happen and it’s unfortunate that it takes a tragedy to make people realise it’s a serious issue.”
“It’s like they don’t see it as a local thing, they see it as a big picture where numbers mean everything but that doesn’t take into account the local situation, everything has to be in context.
“I don’t think you would find anyone in Griffith who wouldn’t think we need a pedestrian crossing there.