u/007MaxZorin

A feature on Victoria's freeways since the 1970s, last week Transport Victoria removed the last "VicRoads Help Phone" from urban Melbourne along the Frankston Freeway.

They can now only be found on rural freeways (several locations have recently been fixed/updated too).

The sign in the bottom image is what they have been replaced with, progressively across metro since 2015.

Eastern Fwy went first in mid 2015, then the Ring Road in 2016, then the Tullamarine & Calder Fwys by 2018, EastLink in 2019 and all the others during COVID. Unsure about the Craigieburn & Deer Park Bypass and the southern end of the Morn Pen Fwy though. Several sites still physically exist however, despite being switched off, often with a sticker/notice.

A decade ago, a report in The Age newspaper claimed they were costing "$1,000 per call" and planned to cease their use, citing their rapid decline in usage since the advent of mobiles and high maintenance costs (said to be millions of dollars in a given year) including Telstra telecomm upgrades. As well as metro having vast CCTV, traffic sensors, automated incident detection, incident response and better mobile signals vs regional.

Did you ever have to use one? What do you think, good government money saving initiative or potentially dangerous?

Underrated gem from nearly four decades ago, arguably a Schwarzenegger vehicle and amazing some of the names involved in this project:

The one and only Walter Hill (story, script, production, direction). EPs Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna (AKA Carolco). And co-stars Jim Belushi in one of his better performances, an early Gina Gershon in a prominent role and the great Peter Boyle.

Restored for 4K a few years ago by Studiocanal (who own Carolco's library).

Loved the Russian elements for a Hollywood mainstream film. The opening scene and the action and violence was also memorable. Plus Chicago and a rare one not involving Andrew Davis or Ron Dean & Co.

A top, often overlooked espionage thriller from the late great Tony Scott.

What do you think about this one?

I thought the writing and casting was good and liked the premise and retrospective narrative, also the limited setting meeting/interrogation scenes inside CIA Langley. Love this sort of flick.

A shout out as well to the always reliable Marianne Jean Baptiste and a brilliant performance by Stephen Dillane.

"Along Came A Spider" (2001), a rather terrible Alex Cross adaptation and compared to the excellent James Patterson source material. Also coming off the decent "Kiss the Girls" in 1997 also with Freeman and with Ashley Judd.

Plus what happened to Monica Potter? Was looking like becoming something! After "Con Air", "A Cool Dry Place" and "Patch Adams". Though she did appear in S1 of "Boston Legal".

And having seen the movie before reading the novel, all I can say for this sequel was the plot twist at the climax was a nice jump moment and a few chills, I will give it that. Michael Wincott's as always solid performance too.

So what are others??