The section of road between the northern outskirts of Clive and the bridge over the Ngaruroro River had been of concern to Hohepa Hawke's Bay for many years, the facility's general manager Santiago De Marco said.
He said that on top of the 60 residents that lived at Hohepa full time, there were 214 staff, 110 people who used the community's programmes, 30 staff who lived on site, as well as contractors and other support agency staff who came to the facility every day.
"There's also the people who come to the shop, which is critical for our service model - it's bigger than your average day-to-day operation.
"We've had 10 years of formal engagement with different agencies trying to address the dangers of this road, and we would like to take the opportunity to call on the wider community for support."
Kim Stewart worked and lived at one of the orchard houses near the Clive township, and said it was not unusual to be waiting five to 10 minutes on the side road to cross over two lanes of traffic to get into the Hohepa entrance.
"There's limited visibility to see who is coming off the bridge, both lanes are going 100km/h - it's fraught."
Nicola Hartigan lives outside the facility but uses its services every day and said she usually waited a long time to leave in the afternoons at 4pm, when she often had other appointments to get to.
"Every day everybody gets stressed out, it needs to be fixed."
Mark Witchalls' severely autistic daughter attends Hohepa, and said such residents were at increased risk.
"These kids have absolutely no ability to assess danger - my fear is that one of the residents will be killed, which would be tragic for them and their family, but it would be just as bad for an innocent driver - it's not necessary to have that speed limit on that road."
He said the situation had been exacerbated by the developments at Waitangi Park, which while making it an attractive place to visit also caused traffic issues with more people visiting and turning on and off the main road.
Mr Witchalls noted that south of Clive and towards Hastings there were reduced speed zones and asked why the same could not be applied to the north.
"As it is people are going above the speed limit, and there's no-one applying the law."
Mr De Marco said the organisation took all the steps it could to ensure client safety including internal gates, a cattle-stop over the main road gate and GPS tracking units on clients that may need them.
NZTA regional transport systems manager Wayne Oldfield said a corridor study was currently underway on the route from south of Clive to north of Awatoto.
"This study is expected to be completed in early 2018 and will provide us with recommendations on further safety improvements to be investigated," he said.
As part of the study speed limits would also be reviewed.
"We will then be in a position to carry out safety improvements. We are actively working with the Clive community group who are also aware of the study."
Yesterday's crash followed one the day before on another notoriously dangerous section of road between Te Aute and Longlands Rds.
This bend had been the site of many fatal and serious crashes over the years, and had also prompted community members to call for the speed limit of 100km/h to be lowered.
