Road work blamed for car crashes

Published in the Waikato Times

Seven cars have crashed on a 55kmph corner in Ohaupo since the road was resurfaced in December 2011.

Four of those crashes, on Ryburn Rd, happened in April this year after the second coat of seal was applied.

The most recent crash involved David Nicoll, who was driving home in the dark when he hit the corner and lost control.

His car spun, then hit the ditch and rolled once. Nicoll, the sole occupant of the vehicle, was unharmed but the car was smashed along the passenger side and was unsalvageable.

The corner has a 55kmph advisory speed sign, but it's very close to the corner.

"I was on top of it [the corner] before I realised I was going quite fast," said Nicoll.

When Te Awamutu police sergeant Chris Greenwood turned up to Nicoll's rolled car in April, he said there had not been any other crashes reported.

Resident Bruce Christieson, whose house is on the hazardous corner, witnessed seven accidents since the road was originally resurfaced.

The accidents only started occurring when the road was resurfaced, said Christieson, who has lived at the property for 15 years.

He believes that the crashes are due to excessive speed and the loose chip that remains after a road is resealed.

Christieson has appealed to the council twice to fix the excess gravel.

"They just say they will look into it but that's as far as it's gone."

Waipa District Council planning and design engineer Paul Strange was not aware of any problems.

"We haven't had any reported," he said.

Christieson believes moving the sign further up the road might help drivers slow down before they hit the corner.

Jason O'Dea, a contract engineer with the Waipa District Council, said there were standards for locating signs but he would take Christieson's suggestion on board.

Christieson has helped a couple of cars get out of the ditches on either side of the road but the council's road corridor manager Dawn Inglis said that this good deed posed a challenge for the council.

"Often farmers are very good at just going and pulling them back onto the road and then they're gone and sometimes we don't hear about them [the accidents].

We do want to hear about those incidents so that we are aware of them and can have a look and see if there's anything we can do."

Christieson frequently finds bits of metal and gravel in his yard from the milk trucks going past so fast, and this is a concern for his machinery.

"The milk trucks cut the corners and throw big blocks onto my lawn."

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