A prominent road safety campaigner is blaming multiple deaths on the design of New Zealand roads.
Clive Matthew-Wilson, who edits the car review website dogandlemon.com, was commenting after Santhosh Kumar Cherukuri was killed in a head-on collision on State Highway 2 at Pahoia, just before 7.30pm on Thursday.
Mr Cherukuri had crossed the centreline into the path of an approaching truck and trailer unit.
Matthew-Wilson believes the government contributes to many such fatalities, because it fails to take action to improve the safety of many “appallingly dangerous” rural roads.
“How many fatalities and serious accidents on this section of highway does it take for the Government to act? With very high traffic volumes and repeated accidents, surely the common sense approach is to separate opposing lines of traffic."
“There is no question that Mr Cherukuri would probably be alive today if median barriers had been installed on this road.”
“There’s also no question that rumble strips alert drivers who are crossing the centre line or drifting off the road. Yet these vital safety features, which cost very little, are missing from some of the most dangerous roads in the country.”
Matthew-Wilson adds:
“The government could start installing these barriers next week, but the reason they don’t is because, in some places, traffic – especially trucks – would be slowed down due to the road being a bit narrower.”
“When the government’s engineers calculate whether or not a road is suitable for a median barrier, they inevitably reject the idea if the road is not unrealistically wide. That’s the reason for the lack of median barriers on most rural roads: the government doesn’t want to slow trucks down.”
“While there will inevitably be some roads that are simply too narrow for median barriers, most roads are suitable, provided the speed limit is lowered.”
A wire rope barrier was installed along a 10km stretch south of Paekakariki in 2005. In the 20 years before it was installed, head-on collisions claimed about 40 lives and around 120 people were seriously injured.
Since the wire rope median barrier was installed, the serious accidents stopped overnight.
Matthew-Wilson adds:
“While the government delays building these vital road safety modifications, needless road deaths will continue. Every preventable collision on the country’s roads is more blood on the hands of the government.”
