The deadly highway to Northland

The victims

It was a typical balmy summer’s evening in Northland on Christmas day 2015.
Traffic on State Highway 1 south of Whangārei was bumper to bumper as people, having celebrated the day, were travelling to their favourite holiday spots about 6.30pm.

For one Onerahi family it meant packing up their two cars and heading for their caravan at the popular seadside destination at The Sandspit, near Warkworth. It was a family tradition but it could also have been their last together.

A French tourist driving north, with a female passenger, crossed the centre line just before the intersection with the road leading to the Puwera landfill, and slammed into the vehicle driven by Aynslie Holland and her passenger, daughter Maddie Adams. The north-bound rental car then spun out of control, striking a second vehicle in which Martin Adams and youngest daughter Emilie were travelling in.

In a split second their lives changed.

“I remember swearing and thinking, 's***, what’s he doing?', and then I just slammed on the brakes and moved to the left, hoping that he would go back onto the other side,” Aynslie says. “Then I knew we were going to get hit.”

She wipes away tears and continues.

“Maddie called out ... I just remember saying we are going to be OK. Then it stopped, it was very quick.”

She asked if Maddie was alright then instructed her to get out and “get daddy to call an ambulance”.

Just one car back, Martin watched the horrific few seconds unfold. “I remember looking up and the car from the other side of the road, that was travelling north, just didn't go around the corner and came across the middle line.

“Aynslie swerved as much as she could but it hit them head-on on the front driver’s corner and spun them around onto the barrier on the side. Then it spun around and hit Emilie and I and pushed us across the road into the other lane on the other side of the road.”

Martin pauses while he recalls the terrifying seconds. “Yeah, it was ... totally unbelievable really. Nightmare stuff. All the airbags in that vehicle had activated so I couldn’t see in the car. I remember thinking I need to go and help but I don't know what to do. I put my head in the car and didn’t know what to expect.”

Aynslie had to be cut from the car. The force of her foot on the brake had travelled through her leg and caused her pelvis to shatter and dislocate. She also suffered a fractured back, cheek and nose.

The rest of the family were not injured.

A woman who had stopped took the two young girls and put them in her car and covered the windscreen.

“I knew he had died and I could hear her, his passenger, calling out. The people who helped us had really great insight to help our girls so they didn’t have to see terrible stuff,” Aynslie said.

She had surgery the same day, then more surgery at North Shore Hospital two days later. For eight weeks Aynslie was in a wheelchair and eventually had to learn to walk again.

She has accepted she will never be the same again and now has a “new normal”.

“It’s been tricky for lots of people ... it's impacted on lots of people but you know we get to have Christmas all together and his family doesn’t. We acknowledged his family on the first anniversary, just to say fortunately we are all together but we were thinking of them.”

Martin reckons his family is extremely lucky and they have had plenty of support from family, friends, school and the community.

“It’s just tragic the whole circumstance, we don’t blame anyone. He has paid the ultimate price really. His girlfriend, or partner, who was in the vehicle had terrible injuries as well ... it should never have happened but it’s not a blame situation.”

The family have spoken out about their chilling brush with death in the hope people will think about their own driving behaviours and take away a road safety message from their terrifying experience.

The whole family are now acutely aware of what other drivers are doing on the road. Martin said the work done on the Bryndewyn Hills with the wire barriers in the centre of the road and along the road edges had no doubt saved lives. He believes that similar work on the section south of Whangārei is needed.

Aynslie said the yellow flexie poles now in place on the dangerous section of road had made drivers more aware and could have potentially been enough to stop the French driver from crossing the lane and smashing into her vehicle.

The economic impact

Bill Shepherd is under no illusion how vital the road is to the region’s economic prosperity.

Shepherd, the Northland Regional Council chairman, describes the road south of Whangārei as Northland’s “economic lifeblood, our lifeline. It’s as simple as that.”

“Ninety eight per cent of Northland’s freight goes down the highway between Whangārei and Auckland, and that’s the heavy freight, and 100 per cent of personal and tourist traffic goes on that road so it is Northland’s economic lifeline.”

Since his election to the council he has been part of a team that presented a collective view to government that a four-lane highway was the most important issue for Northland.

“It took us a while to get the previous Government on board about the importance of it so we were concerned that the new Government might feel it was a priority of their predecessors. It was important, from our perspective, to get the message through to Wellington that in fact it was Northland’s priority, not the previous National Government’s priority.”

So when the focus was off the four-lane highway and an alternative route proffered, it was a huge disappointment.

“Northland’s economy is place-based. It’s based on agriculture, forestry, fishing, tourism and horticulture. All of those things happen, spread across the region. If we are going to get our export products out of Northland, 98 per cent is going down that highway.”

Shepherd is not unhappy about the alternative option of a road running parallel with the existing road.

“Eventually commonsense will end up with those two roads effectively being a four-lane highway. Resilience has been part of the reason we have been trying to get that four-lane highway.”

Shepherd says since NZTA came out with an alternative route, a number of different sectors had come out completely of their own volition, expressing their support for progressing a four-lane highway.

“It's not just local government saying this is what it should be, it's people in the community actually operating businesses and spending their money in the local economy saying the same thing. We won't be giving up on the four lanes, it’s just so important.”

Fatal crashes not only impact economically on Northland, but there is also the social cost.

The latest report of the social cost of road crashes and injuries by the Ministry of Transport shows the cost of a fatal crash in Northland on the open road was more than $5 million. A serious crash was estimated to be over $1m, while minor crashes cost $113,000.

Road crashes impose financial and economic costs to society as well as costs that can’t be measured. Those include reduced quality of life, reduced productivity, medical expenses and other resource costs.

Solutions - where to now?

A four-lane highway is the preferred option for most people living in Northland to improve the road between Whangārei and Port Marsden Highway. But it seems those holding the purse strings have other ideas about the best way forward.

In April last year Transport Minister Phil Twyford said there was no question that State Highway 1 in Northland was dangerous in parts and it would be improved.

"It is an economic lifeline for the North and the road is dangerous in parts and needs a lot of work done on it. There's no question about that. We talked about the road in detail. Work will continue on State Highway 1. It must be improved and it will," Twyford said.The delegation of Northland mayors and officials were disappointed after being told by Twyford at a meeting at his office in Wellington that he could not promise to improve the highway to four lanes with a median barrier.Bill Shepherd, chairman of Northland Regional Council, along with Whangarei District Council Mayor Sheryl Mai, Far North District Council Mayor John Carter, Kaipara Mayor Jason Smith, Regional Transport Committee chairman John Bain, and WDC CEO Rob Furlong in his role as chairman of the Northland Transportation Alliance met with the Minister in a bid to push the four lane highway project ahead.

Shepherd said they wanted to express concern over the direction the Government was taking on their roading strategy and heading away from four-lane highways.

"He was clear he could not promise us a four-lane highway under the government priorities."Twyford said it was not his place as Minister to decide on particular roading projects."Operational decisions about the priority and timing of projects are made at arm's length of the Government by the New Zealand Transport Agency board.

"There will be safety improvements made to State Highway 1 including more passing lanes, pull-over bays, upgraded intersections, median and side barriers, and maybe even four lanes in some places. NZTA will make the best decisions on this work," he said.

In October 2018 the New Zealand Transport Agency announced a plan to improve safety and resilience in the short and medium term as well as planning for future population growth.

That plan is to build a new road that runs parallel, but to the east, of the existing State Highway 1. Where exactly the new road, running from south of Whangārei at Loop Rd to the roundabout at Port Marsden highway SH15, would go is still not exactly clear.  And NZTA have not revealed a cost either, or when the project might begin.

NZTA's general manager of system design and delivery Brett Gliddon says the two separate routes across the corridor would improve resilience and provide greater choice.

In the short term the agency promised to deliver safety improvements and more reliable access on the existing state highway while continuing to plan and protect land for a new route in the long term.

“This programme will make it easier for people to access the port and Auckland and will also give people more access to a range of choices including public transport, walking and cycling. It provides two separate routes across the wider corridor which will improve resilience and provide greater choice.”

The Northland project was one of 12 that were re-evaluated to ensure the project aligned with new priorities set out in the Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport which highlighted safety, resilience and access.

The new road would carry northbound and southbound traffic and would be built to the latest design standards. While it was still being confirmed where it would go, safety work would continue on the existing highway.

"To begin with we will deliver short-term safety improvements between Whangārei and Port Marsden Highway to make it safer, such as roadside barriers, median barriers, centre-line widening and improved road marking," Gliddon says.

"At the same time we will continue to future proof for a new route between Whangārei and SH15. Along with the existing road, this will create four lanes of capacity. Land will be designated for a future transport corridor to be built on a better alignment and to the best safety standards."

He says the construction timing and the form of the new route would depend on growth and funding priorities across the rest of the country.

Whangārei MP Shane Reti has voiced his opinion, saying the alternative two-lane road fell short of the four-lane highway that Northlanders wanted and needed to be safe and prosper.

“I drive this road usually twice weekly on the way to parliament and it is clear why it is the deadliest police hotspot road, with more fatalities per kilometre than any other highway in New Zealand. Bring back the four lanes,” Reti says.

He says four-laning over this section of road would make it safer and more efficient.

“This stretch of State Highway 1 from Toetoe Road to the Port Marsden roundabout is very important to Northland’s economic future because it is also the pathway to the port for southbound freight, and the gateway to Whangārei for northbound traffic. 

“Southbound traffic includes up to 500 truck movements per day to the port. The proposed four lanes from Toetoe to Marsden Point roundabout has one of the highest benefit-to-cost ratios of any section of the proposed four lanes all the way to Puhoi. The new and much vaunted Waterview tunnel has a benefit-to-cost ratio of 2, but from Toetoe to Marsden is almost double that.”

Reti says every Northland mayor and every general electorate MP would agree the single biggest economic driver for Northland was four lanes to Auckland. 

“I support an integrated transport solution that includes air, land and sea transport. To future proof this vital route, a proposed pathway for a four-lane highway should be widely consulted on, and then designated so communities, land owners, transport operators and planners can have certainty for the future.

“Significant planning and community meetings were held around the proposed four lanes into Northland, with a view to construction starting in 2019. This was cancelled by the Labour-led Government so that Auckland can get a tram from Queen Street to the airport. Northland’s critical roads have been traded for Auckland’s convenience.”

Whangārei Mayor Sheryl Mai's view on the proposed solution was simple.

“If this results in a divided highway with two lanes north and south, then I support it.”

However, she is quick to say a four-lane, divided highway would be the best result, both for safety and efficiency.

Mai says the state highway was critical infrastructure for the economy, for moving freight, residents, travellers and connecting communities. 

“We deserve a safe, reliable, resilient network of road transport for our region to continue to thrive and contribute to our nation’s economy.”