One person was seriously injured and two moderately during six-vehicle pile-up on Hawke's Bay Expressway. Photo / Supplied
One person was seriously injured and two moderately during six-vehicle pile-up on Hawke's Bay Expressway. Photo / Supplied
A petition to remove roadside wire barriers from the Hawke's Bay Expressway after a six-car pileup has attracted more than 1000 signatures in a single day.
But a local firefighter says the barriers do not affect their ability to respond to crashes like Monday's pileup, and NZTA says the side barriers, combined with median barriers, reduce the number of fatal crashes by up to 90 per cent.
Emergency services struggled to reach the six injured when a cement truck struck the car in front of it, shunting it into a ute and starting a "concertina" of damage on State Highway 2 at 8.17am.
One woman was seriously injured and another five people moderately.
A St John Ambulance took three patients in one ambulance that arrived at Hawke's Bay Hospital about 9.30am. Another three patients arrived at hospital in a second ambulance at 9.58am.
A friend of one of the victims of the crash started the petition on Change.org, and by Thursday afternoon it had more than 1100 signatories.
Waka Kotahi regional transport systems manager Oliver Postings said they were always open to hearing the concerns of communities and asked that people approach them in the first instance.
Postings said the flexible safety barriers help reduce the impact when drivers make mistakes.
"When fitted along the side and centre of the road, these barriers reduce the number of deaths by up to 90 per cent," he said.
"We know that the median barriers on SH2/Hawke's Bay Expressway have saved many lives and prevented serious injuries."
Postings said that between 2008 and 2017, 10 people were killed and 46 were seriously injured in crashes on the expressway, before barriers and other improvements over the past few years.
"We will be debriefing with emergency services to better understand what the issues were [on Monday morning]," he said.
Hawke's Bay road policing constable Steven Knox said on Monday that all three emergency services – police, ambulance and fire – had trouble getting to the scene.
"The amount of traffic on the road and the barriers meant we had limited places where we could merge in and make our way through," he said.
But Fire and Emergency New Zealand assistant area manager Glen Varcoe said although the barriers affected firefighters' ability to clear traffic, they didn't affect their ability to respond to the crash.
The six car pileup on Monday happened as a result of fog and traffic having nowhere to go. Photo / File
He said the barriers were "just a little thing they have to work around".
"From our perspective, the wire rope fences save lives.
"It's a small price to pay - a little bit of inconvenience," Varcoe said.
