Call for road works after motorcyclist dies

Calls for urgent road works on a Wairarapa road have been intensified following a fatal crash yesterday.

A Wellington motorcyclist who died in Masterton Hospital yesterday is the fourth person to die in three years following crashes at a bend on the Masterton-Martinborough Road at Gladstone.

The man, 20, died after his motorcycle collided with a car near the crest of a rising bend on the road at Gladstone about 1.45pm. His name has not yet been made public.

The smash happened just metres from the spot where Joseph Tyacke and Tony Bak were killed when American tourist Pamela Stone struck a group of motorcyclists in her Honda 4WD vehicle on Anzac Day, 2002.

Earlier this year Masterton man Bernie Esler died in hospital several days after crashing his motorcycle on the same curve. It has yet to be established whether the medical complications that caused his death were the result of serious injuries he received in the crash.

Mr Tyacke's widow Shirley Tyacke said lives were being lost because roading authorities have not tackled the design of the S-bend corner.

"There's been two accidents there since ours and these would never have happened if the road was straighter," Mrs Tyacke said yesterday.

She said she had been under the impression the road would be altered and that new warning signs put up after the crash were merely an interim measure.

- WAIRARAPA TIMES-AGE