A new cheese-cutter, safety barrier, wire median fence, being installed on the Hawke's Bay Expressway, near the roundabout intersection with Maraekakaho Rd, Longlands Rd and Pakipaki Rd.
A new cheese-cutter, safety barrier, wire median fence, being installed on the Hawke's Bay Expressway, near the roundabout intersection with Maraekakaho Rd, Longlands Rd and Pakipaki Rd.
The installation of a median barrier and safety wire on a stretch of the Hawke's Bay Expressway is infuriating truck drivers, who say it's already causing unnecessary traffic build-up.
Logging truck driver Andrew Northe has been driving the 3km stretch of State Highway 50A between the York Rd and the Maraekakaho Rd roundabout for the past 30 years.
He says the installation of the barrier has turned a once safe stretch of road into a dangerous one.
A truck driver stuck behind a heavy moving vehicle in the early hours of the morning. Photo / Supplied
Northe said drivers had now lost confidence in passing large rural vehicles such as tractors or other heavy machinery as the "cheese cutter" barrier gave vehicles, especially trucks, very little room to pass.
Northe recently spotted a long line of cars going at snail's pace behind a tractor.
"I asked an NZTA guy how we were expected to pass tractors, he told me it was wide enough - but it's not."
Northe said he was disappointed the NZTA didn't contact the commercial transport industry to ask truck drivers what their thoughts were.
"There's a lot of truck drivers who feel this way. A lot of us drive from Central Hawke's Bay to the Napier Port and a lot us just can't understand why they've done it, the traffic just really backs up.
"It may be a short stretch of road, but getting stuck behind slower moving vehicles really does hold us up and it's causing massive frustration for not just truck drivers, but car drivers as well."
Truck driver Andrew Northe says the barriers give trucks very little room to pass.
Another truck driver who wanted to be known only as 'Matthew' said the barrier posed a risk for car breakdowns.
"There's just no places to pull over when they put the barrier up. It's also a unlit piece of road as we drive it a lot at night. What happens if I car gets a flat tyre along there? Where are they going to pull over?
"It's just a really big risk."
NZTA Regional Transport systems manager Oliver Postings said between 2008 and 2017, there were 10 deaths and 46 serious injuries resulting from crashes along the Hawke's Bay Expressway between Bay View and Paki Paki.
"Median wire rope barriers in particular are an important safety measure which will prevent the devastating impact of head-on crashes.
"These will be installed over the majority of the expressway between Bay View and Longlands Rd.
"There have already been a number of instances where vehicles have struck the median wire rope barriers that have already been installed."
Once the barriers between York Rd and Maraekakaho Rd had been installed the NZTA would be monitoring the site closely to see if any improvements or changes needed to be made, Postings said.
Postings said NZTA consulted widely with stakeholders prior to installation and there had been no complaints to date.
Hawke's Bay road policing manager Matt Broderick said drivers needed to be patient.
"It's only a three kilometre stretch, if you timed it, you're not really losing a lot of time at all. It just feels like it compared to what some drivers are used to."
Broderick said a divided road was far safer than a non-median divided road.
"We may not have had a head on collision on that stretch of road, but it doesn't mean that stretches of road like that aren't having head-on collisions.
"The safest countries in the world don't allow 100km/h speed limits on roads that are not centre divided."
