Call to fix lethal stretch
The days of ‘swooping’ tummies at the Kawakawa three bridges could soon be over
An online petition supported by emergency services is calling for changes to the 100km/h speed limit on a deadly stretch of Northland road close to a childcare centre.
Alice Rule, an ambassador for the Northland Rescue Helicopter and coowner of a dairy farm in Pakaraka, is calling on the NZ Transport Agency to change the speed limit on the Three Bridges, at the entrance to Kawakawa, before more people die.
She said in the last three months, two people died and three were critically injured in accidents on the bridge while the NZ Transport Agency decided how to deal with the many complaints about the speed limit on that stretch of State Highway 1. The 100km/h starts about 50m from the intersection of SH1 and Reyner St where the Te Mirumiru Early Childhood Education Centre is located and continues along the Three Bridges and right up to just before Moerewa.
In January, a motorcyclist became Northland’s first road fatality after a southbound
Harley Davidson motorcycle he had been on collided head-on with a truck on the middle bridge.
Rule was caught up in a traffic queue during that crash on her way home from milking and decided to push to have the speed lowered through an online petition.
Two years ago, she had a close brush on one of the bridges when an oncoming car overtaking traffic managed to pull back into the correct lane just in time. Her petition had 429 signatures by 4pm yesterday and Rule said her aim was to reach 1000.
The Kawakawa Business Association and the local fire brigade are supporting her calls for the 100km/ h speed sign to be pushed further north past the bridges and close to the intersection with Whangae Rd.
“There are multiple speed adjustments in and out of Moerewa on far less dangerous stretches of road. Two deaths and three people airlifted off those bridges since November last year is too much.
“We are asking for NZTA to listen to Northland police, Fire and Emergency services to make our roads safe,” she said. In a statement, NZTA pointed to a link that contained information about its speed reviews on the highest risk routes in New Zealand as part of the Safe Network Programme.
State highways north of Whanga¯ rei are not on NZTA’s highest risk routes. Auckland, Waikato and Canterbury have been identified as the priority regions for the first phase of the three-year programme.
Kawakawa Business Association chairman Malcolm Francis said he complained about the speed limit to former Transport Minister Simon Bridges in 2017 and has since also contacted NZTA but so far nothing has been done.
“The speed is 100km/h until about 20m of the gateway to Kawakawa and we’ve got mums with their children pulling out of the early childhood centre. It’s a black spot.”
Kawakawa fire chief Wayne Martin, who was the first on the scene of this year’s first fatality on the middle bridge and called 111, said he would support any initiative that saved people’s lives.
“The Three Bridges is a narrow piece of state highway and lowering the speed limit may avoid higher impact during crashes or drivers may have time to slow down and avoid a collision.”
Speed restriction, he said, should be pushed back towards Moerewa to make that intersection and the Three Bridges safer. Labour list MP Willow-Jean Prime who is from Moerewa said she would take the issue up with Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter.
Inspector Wayne Evers of the Northland road policing team said he supported anything that made roads safer. Rule’s online petition can be accessed on www.change.org.