Opinion: Mistakes happen- let's make them less deadly

White crosses along SH2 from Te Puna to Pahoia. Photo/file

Sean Lett keeps a "go box" at his front door.

Lett lives on State Highway 2 and has grown so accustomed to attending crashes on the notorious stretch of highway that he has provisions ready to go when he hears the sirens going off, including blankets, gloves, water, sheets to cover bodies, and pillows to put under injured people's heads.

He told the Bay of Plenty Times at the Fix the Bloody Road meeting on Sunday that in eight years, he had been to about 10 crashes.

"We go to the end of the driveway and see if we can help."

Can you imagine living like that, waiting for the next person to die on your doorstep?

It's horrifying, yet scarily normal, for many people who live on or near State Highway 2, one of the most dangerous stretches of road in the country.

Mistakes happen, and sometimes those mistakes have fatal consequences.

But when one stretch of road has multiple fatalities a year, the focus must shift to prevention.

Driver error isn't something we can fix, but we can make safety changes so if a driver does make a mistake, they don't kill themselves or innocent others.

How many deaths does it take to force a change?

From 2012 to 2016 the road saw 18 deaths and 35 serious injuries.

I would say 18 deaths is a lot and I'm sure most people would agree

There have been rumblings about fixing SH2 the past 30-odd years.

Why is it taking so long for anything to be done? In the last 30 years, we've had two Labour Governments and two National Governments, and none of them implemented major changes.

National did say they would fund the Tauranga Northern Link, but waited until the last six months of their nine-year reign to do so, so there was no surety it was ever going to happen.

Now our hopes rest on a new Labour Government to do what no other Government in the last 30-odd years has done - Fix the Bloody Road.

How many more deaths will it take before something is done?