Tiny town of Apple Tree Creek has recorded a high number of fatal crashes Roadside memorial on the Bruce Highway at Apple Tree Creek. MARCELLA Brearley was sipping on her morning coffee when a loud "bang" thundered down the road. Looking around, the 57-year-old local pub owner saw a sight that many Apple Tree Creek residents have simply become numb to - a fatal crash. The 5km section that runs through the town is the worst fatal crash zone along the Bruce Highway, with six crashes and seven deaths recorded between 2008 and the end of 2012. Tourists entering the town of about 400, north of Childers, are currently greeted by three memorial sites along just 100m of fencing. Several locals have blamed the lack of turning lanes, the 80km/h speed limit and driver fatigue for the string of tragedies. Last November, a 27-year-old Brisbane man was killed when the ute in which he was a passenger smashed into the back of a truck waiting to turn right from the highway shortly after 8am. A second semi-trailer failed to stop and ended up driving on top of the ute, with the driver escaping with minor injuries. "We heard the bang and we just turned and saw it," Ms Brearley, who has owned the local pub since last August, said. We saw what we assumed was a fairly new ute ... a truck right on top of it and the front left-hand tyre of the semi was in the passenger seat. Ms Brearley, who has witnessed a number of crashes along the Bruce Highway over the past five years, says she has become numb to the carnage. "You just start going, 'Another one, another one'," she said. We just looked at that accident and we just knew straight away that somebody had died and it stays with you for a while. You think about the parents, a young guy and you hope they don't have kids or anything. It's not as bad for me as it is for the people who have to pull that guy out of there. Having lost a child herself, she still thinks about the family of the man killed. "They're suffering and they'll suffer forever," she said. Metres down the road, bird sanctuary owners David and Anne Tocknell, 72 and 69 respectively, are still feeling lucky they decided at the last minute not to let their emus and kangaroos roam the larger fenced off area. That night, about midnight, a semi-trailer veered off the road. glanced off a large tree and ploughed through their corrugated iron fence. "He was lucky he didn't die," Mrs Tocknell said. About that much further over and he would have hit a tree head-on and he would have died. He was a very lucky man, he was so upset. Mr Tocknell said he and other residents are tired of seeing "nasty" crash sites, saying he often hears motorists slamming on their brakes as they pass through. "You hear it and you just wait for the thud," he said. Mrs Tocknell described the number of accidents as "shocking." "There's been lots of people killed along here, it's really bad," she sad. All those people going about their normal daily activities and then they don't make it home, that's the sad part. Melissa How, 37, works at the local tractor shop and has lived near the Tocknell's sanctuary since 2008. She says the accident sounded "like an explosion." Ms How does not let her children cross the highway, having seen too many horror smashes. I've probably seen about five just at this corner ... one fatal and a lot of rear-enders She, too, shudders as she hears drivers narrowly avoid near-misses becoming fatal crashes. "The screeches ... you just don't even want to look - it is a bit distressing," she said. "I personally won't turn there anymore, I'll come down behind the park and come across the highway, because you're sitting there in the middle of the highway with trucks and things belting up behind you with nowhere to go around," she said. You're sitting there thinking 'I hope the people behind me notice I'm turning'. Just down the road, Jennie Webb, 54, has watched the near misses from her roadside pie van since last October. The Apple Tree Creek resident of 10 years - who was forced to sell her BMW because of the damage the highway was causing to it - also points to the lack of turning lanes as a major issue. "Overseas tourists come along and they go, 'When do I get on the main road?'" she said. It's a bad stretch here. Ms Brearley said she was not convinced either side of politics was truly committed to fully upgrading the Bruce Highway. "Politicians don't give a stuff - they insult our intelligence by saying they'll fix the Bruce Highway," she said. They've been telling us that for years.