Rural road's regular crash site needs some warning signs

Kapiro Road resident Nicole Roach is calling for warning signs and a lower speed limit after a series of serious crashes, including a near fatality last week.

Residents of a rural road near Kerikeri, who are sick of car-crash carnage outside their homes, are calling for a reduced speed limit and warning signs.

Kapiro Road, which links Skudders Beach and Landing Road with State Highway 10 north of Kerikeri, has a 100km/h speed limit, and has seen several serious accidents in recent years. Most recently, on Tuesday night last week a woman in her late teens was critically injured when she lost control of her car, which flipped and landed upside down in a ditch.

The crash occurred outside the address of Richard and Janette Tingey, who said it was the 14th crash, many of them serious, at exactly the same spot in 20 years. Five years ago the couple replaced their fence with a line of boulders.

One day someone will be waiting for a school bus or walking to their letter box and they'll be hit."

Richard Tingey

"They normally bounce over the boulders and end up in our paddock, that's how fast they go," Mr Tingey said.

As well as injured motorists, Mrs Tingey worried about the risk to Kapiro Road residents.
"One day someone will be waiting for a school bus or walking to their letter box and they'll be hit," she said.

Nicole Roach, who lives across the road, said residents had repeatedly tried to have the speed limit lowered, but it seemed no one was listening.

"We're sick and tired of the carnage, the accidents, the damage to our properties," she said.

She wanted the limit reduced to 80km/h, as it was on nearby Waipapa Road, and warning signs on either side of the black spot. A corner just west of the crash site was often covered in water when it rained, causing drivers to lose control if they were travelling at speed.

The Far North District Council investigated dropping the limit in 2015, but rejected it on the advice of a traffic engineer.

Ms Roach, who said her daughter should be able to play in the trees along the front of her property or ride her bike on the driveway without fear of being hit by a car, would be contacting the council again after last week's crash.

It was hard on her neighbours, who were always cleaning up and picking the pieces, she added, and livestock were also threatened. Even if animals in the roadside paddock weren't hurt they could escape when the fence was bowled, and if they then caused another accident her neighbours could be liable, which wasn't fair.

The cause of the latest crash has yet to be determined, but wet weather may have been a factor. Other Kapiro Road crashes, including those that claimed the lives of motorcyclist John Paton on Anzac Day and cyclist Bill Bayliss in 2014, involved drink-drivers.

A crash just before Christmas 2013, in which the car flew over the boulders along the Tingeys' boundary, was caused by high speed. That driver was trapped and soaked in petrol with his upside down car wedged against a sparking electric fence.

In November 2015 a six-year-old girl was one of three people injured when an overtaking ute collided with a turning sprayer.