A Melbourne woman has escaped death after a freeway sign detached from its frame and crushed her car on a freeway during the afternoon peak hour.

The 54-year-old 4WD driver was travelling along the Tullamarine Freeway near Essendon Airport about 5.30pm on Tuesday when the 5×4 metre sign detached from the gantry, before toppling onto the on-ramp.

Dash cam vision shows the car’s bonnet bearing the brunt of the impact, before the sheer weight of the metal sheet caved in the car’s roof, with its windscreen shattered and leaving parts of the wreckage strewn across the road.

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The woman is expected to be discharged from the Royal Melbourne Hospital on Wednesday, after she sustained only injuries to her arm and minor neck pain in the incident.

The section of freeway leading to Bulla Road was closed for a several hours as on-site emergency services attended the scene, and additional efforts were conducted to clear the wreckage.

A crane was required to remove the metal structure.

Graeme Chambers, delivery director at the Major Roads Project Authority, Victoria’s statutory body that oversees construction of new roads, told 3AW the sign was installed as part of a Tullamarine Freeway widening project completed by Transurban in late 2017.

“This is an extremely rare situation,” Chambers said.

The sign and the support structure attached to the gantry has come down, so it’s somehow failed where the connection is to the overhead gantry.”
Major Roads Project Authority delivery director Graeme Chambers

Chambers said engineers were sent to the site to assess the gantry immediately after the incident, with extra signage along the Tullamarine corridor to be evaluated as part of investigations.

“It’s been visually inspected and some equipment used to test the surrounding area of the metal where the sign is attached, and I’ve had advice this morning that there are no signs of concern on that same gantry,” he said.

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Victorian government minister Ben Carroll said it was concerning the sign fell.

“I cannot underscore how rare that occurrence is,” he told reporters, noting he uses the road almost daily.

“This sign was put up as part of the CityLink Tulla Authority work that went out there, so they have given us confidence that the additional signs put on that gantry are safe and secure.”

Additional gantry fixtures would be investigated, he said.

-with AAP