VICKI Close is used to the obstacles Cargo Road has thrown her way in her 10 or more years driving to Orange but after Friday's trip, the Cowra resident was unflinching in describing it as a death trap.
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"It's atrocious, absolutely atrocious," Ms Close said.
"It wasn't too bad, they had patches they kept on filling but now, it's atrocious. They need to do something before someone is killed.
"It's not just crumbling in from the sides, it's what I call craters. And I mean craters. If your car hits them, you would probably be up to the bodywork in a normal car. I am not joking."
Ms Close lives in Cowra but works in Orange where shift work is a major part of her job. She says the trip normally takes about an hour and 20 minutes but now she takes almost two hours to ensure she and her Subaru Impreza arrive safely.
And that hasn't always been the case, with her sedan needing its back tyres replaced and wheel alignment this week with a mechanic telling her the damage could be attributed to weaving, sometimes unsuccessfully the fractured road surface.

Member for Orange Phil Donato is also calling for urgent action on Cargo Road after receiving numbers calls and letters from user in the past month.
"It's nothing new but with the recent rainfall has made it worse," Mr Donato said on Friday.
"It's extremely dangerous at the moment because there is hardly any shoulder along the road and the speed limits near 80, 90 in some places 100.
"Vehicles are travelling at reasonable speed and there's no shoulder and there's people moving, trying to avoid hitting potholes, going on the wrong side of the road, it's a disaster waiting to happen."
Mr Donato said he had made "half a dozen representations Cabonne Council and Minister for Regional Roads Sam Farraway, on Thursday adding Deputy Premier Paul Toole, Premier Dominic Perrottet and Treasurer Matt Kean to the list
"Cabonne might have be been a natural disaster declaration [after the recent floods] which gives them a maybe a million dollars or one point four but that's not going to cut it," Mr Donato said

"They need significant government investment to do the job properly.
"All the springs are full, all the underground springs, when the road was built originally there wasn't sufficient drainage put it ... it's been a problem for a while, it's not new but it's been exacerbated by the recent poor weather.
"It's the worse I've seen."
Ms Close said by the time she arrives at work she is weary from the trip, which regularly features near-misses including a recent encounter with an SUV utility, which hit a pothole that was much deeper than the driver suspected, as it was filled with water after Thursday's rain.

"It threw [the SUV], towards me. The guy looked at me and I looked at him, it was oh my god. Luckily we missed each other but that could have been a disaster."
"Even those people in SUV's or the big trucks, it chucks them ... they're all over the road."
Ms Close said in some instances, she reduced her speed to 10km/h.
"So you're slowly rolling through these craters. If you know where they are you can sometimes sit in the middle of the road and dodge them but that's not good for oncoming traffic. I've had buses that have tried to dodge them and realise I'm coming, we get semis on that road, ambulances... they're flying.
"It's adding time to travel, in patches you can sit on the speed limit but in other areas you've got no chance."
Both Ms Close and Mr Donato said the area around Lidster was possible the most dangerous stretch with Ms Close also pointing out the danger of kangaroos when she uses the road for late night return trips or early morning shift starts.





