After Bulli Pass tragedy, residents left asking: what's stopping the next one?

Living at the first house after the Bulli Pass turnoff onto Lawrence Hargrave Drive for the past 14 years, Mr Collins knew that one day soon there would be a serious crash.

For years, particularly after the overpass was built, Mr Collins had heard the squeal of tyres, the muffled bangs of nose-to-tail collisions.

But it was on Friday afternoon that Mr Collins's worst fears were realised.

An out-of-control removalist truck careened left at the bottom of Bulli Pass, not into the safety wall at the bottom in the direction of Wollongong but up, left through a stop sign and into the rear of a passing BMW four-wheel drive.

Now, the driver of that car, a 40-year-old woman, is fighting for her life at a Sydney hospital, while one of the three removalists is dead. Another is in a critical condition and the third is stable.

It was when Mr Collins heard the succession of bangs that didn't get any quieter that he knew this was a bad one.

The former hospital warden and Streetbeat worker grabbed his keys, put on his boots and grabbed a tool he had bought for this very occasion, hoping he'd never have to use it.

The shape of a large folding knife, the black rescue tool contained a blade, a seatbelt cutter and a pommel.

Mr Collins ran to where the BMW had stopped and attempted to assist freeing the woman inside. The tool came in handy, allowing a Fire and Rescue worker to break through the glass.

"Blood and guts doesn't bother me, what did bother me was when I realised she was not breathing," he said.

"I took a few steps back, saw two bodies up there, and I thought, if she's dead those guys probably are too."

Mr Collins remained with the woman and the car as she gasped for breath. Along with another man, Mr Collins held her in a position where she could breathe as crews worked to free her.

Having seen the damage to the car and how the woman ended up, Mr Collins said she was only metres away from a much worse fate.

But now the wreckage has cleared and all that is left is a few spray-painted marks and scratched concrete dividers, Mr Collins is one of the many Thirroul and Bulli residents asking what can be done to prevent this from happening again.

While not quite the Towradgi Bump, Bulli Pass is one of the most iconic and important roads in the Illawarra - and a notorious blackspot.

Nearby residents were stunned that an out of control truck in 2019 didn't cause more serious damage. The truck rolled and caught alight, spilling dirt along the roadway, but miraculously, the driver, other motorists and residents escaped serious injury.

The driver was later jailed for nine months after being convicted of driving while high on ice, a sentence that was not reduced on appeal.

After the incident in 2019, Labor MLC Adam Searle in Parliament asked whether a safety review of Bulli Pass had been conducted and was told by Don Harwin, representing the then Transport Minister: "Transport for NSW continually monitors the state road network and its performance to ensure road users' journeys are as safe as possible".

"TfNSW worked closely with the NSW Police Force which conducted a detailed investigation into the 26 March 2019 crash."

Crash data shows more than a dozen serious crashes between 2018 and 2022 on the notorious road, with a cluster of collisions at the hairpin bend and at the intersection with Lawrence Hargrave Drive.

Minister for the Illawarra and Keira MP Ryan Park said he would leave discussion on factors behind the crash to the police investigation.

"Any death or serious injury on our roads is a tragedy and we express condolences to the family of the person killed in the crash at Thirroul yesterday," he said.

Mr Collins and many residents on Facebook asked why a grassed area north of the T intersection where the accident occurred couldn't be turned into a slip lane, reducing the challenging visibility at the current stop sign.

But another question is whether heavily laden trucks should be using Bulli Pass at all, with the steep road lacking the arrested beds available on the Mount Ousley Road descent.

"In an ideal world there would be no trucks on Bulli Pass," Mr Collins said. "But how do you sustain your local economy without trucks? I don't know."

In the interim, Mr Collins and others suggested that additional signage be placed further up Bulli Pass warning drivers that if their brakes do fail to go right, not left, and use the wall in case of an impact.

"Even just basic signage may have made a difference yesterday."

Only days before the fatal crash, Mr Park and Heathcote MP Maryanne Stuart announced the start of work to investigate the long-awaited Bulli bypass.

"Safety on Bulli Pass is a priority for the NSW Government," Mr Park said. "Under Labor Transport for NSW has commenced early investigations into a bypass of the Bulli town centre with $20 million dollars committed for these investigations.

"A range of options are being considered and consultation is now open for community feedback."

While there is no decision yet on the final design, a future road could divert heavy vehicles away from the steepest, most dangerous points.

Residents like Mr Collins will hope it doesn't take the decades it has to get to this point to find a solution. In the meantime, his rescue tool remains by the door.