The death of a motorcyclist who reportedly hit a pothole has brought the Victorian government under fresh pressure over the state of the state’s roads.
Emergency services were called to Trawalla, west of Ballarat, just before 1pm on Sunday after reports a motorcycle had crashed into a pothole. The 71-year-old Ballarat racer died at the scene after he reportedly lost control on the Western Freeway near Trawalla Road.
The rider was identified on Monday as Peter Mason, also known as Tiki, who was president of the Eureka Social Riders motorcycle club and was highly respected in the community.
Police are still investigating the circumstances of the crash, which had not yet been determined on Sunday. But the death has reignited concerns about the quality of Victoria’s public roads, a key issue ahead of the state’s November election.
“He was a kind, genuine man and his death has left a real hole in all of our hearts,” Pedro, founder of another social motorcycle club, Easyriders Australia, wrote on Facebook.
“We also cannot ignore how preventable this is. The pothole crisis is not just a Victorian problem, it is a national problem. And the continued failure to fix dangerous roads, despite endless complaints, is unacceptable.”
Michael White of the Hogs, Cogs and Two Aussie Flogs podcast called Mason’s death “completely senseless”.
“Surprise surprise, we haven’t talked about this in three years, have we?” White said. “And now we have the fatality of an absolute gentleman.”
Victorian Liberal leader Jess Wilson said Mason’s death was “avoidable” while Nationals leader and Opposition roads spokesman Danny O’Brien said it was a “tragedy that simply should not have happened”.
“Peter Mason went out for a walk with a friend on Sunday afternoon and did not return home,” Wilson said. “He should have done it. We have roads riddled with potholes and a government that has failed to get basic measures right.”
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The Auditor General’s report, tabled in Parliament last week, examined more than 23,000km of public roads and found 48% of the network was in poor or very poor condition – up from 39% in 2021.
The report also found that roads were “decaying” faster than the government could repair them, with the gap between the number of reported road defects and the number of roads repaired doubling between January 2025 and June 2026.
Before the May budget, the Department of Transport told the government it needed $3 billion a year to maintain road surfaces at existing levels while replacing aging assets, the auditor general said. But the government has allocated only $1.04 billion in the 2026-27 budget.
That amount has since been increased by $352 million by new Victorian Premier Ben Carroll, who has pledged to double the number of potholes fixed in 2026 from 250,000 to 500,000. Meanwhile, the Victorian Coalition has pledged $5 billion over four years to fix a million potholes and restore preventive road maintenance.
On Monday, Carroll called the incident a “tragic loss of life.”
“Victoria Police have made it clear that the circumstances are still under investigation, so I do not intend to issue a warning,” he said in a statement. “I know the road conditions are not good enough.”
Speaking on ABC Radio Melbourne, he took responsibility for the state of the roads, saying: “We have to be responsible.”
“I’ve made it very clear that responsibility for road maintenance can no longer be passed on to the government. That’s why I said that under my government – it was outsourced in the mid-1990s – I was going to bring road maintenance back to the government.”