26 September 2023

Energex marks road safety with a shock

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Energex contributed to Queensland Road Safety Week last week (16-20 August) by highlighting a series of incidents involving vehicles hitting electrical equipment.

Community Safety Manager at the utility, Aaron Smith said drivers needed to be on the lookout for power poles, pillar boxes and padmount substations.

“If you’re working near overhead powerlines, use our Look Up and Live app to plan the job safely,” Mr Smith said.

“We want you to avoid hitting electrical assets in the first place, but it’s also important you know what to do in the worst-case scenario.”

He said people involved in an incident that brought down powerlines or exposed underground cables should always assume the wires were live and they should stay in their vehicle and wait for help.

“The best thing any bystanders can do is never touch the vehicle because the outside of it could be live, call triple zero and stay at least 10 metres away from any fallen powerlines,” Mr Smith said.

The Manager said that, in the past fortnight, Energex crews had responded to incidents across South-East Queensland, including vehicles hitting power poles in Ipswich, Arana Hills, Crestmead and the Gold Coast, and trenching machines contacting underground high-voltage cables in Springwood and Nambour.

He said drivers could not afford to overlook electrical infrastructure because they were surrounded by it.

“Across Queensland we have 178,000 kilometres of overhead powerlines, 29,000 kilometres of underground cable and 1.7 million poles – if you come into contact with any of them your life could be on the line,” Mr Smith said.

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