Crash prompts road name review

A new system will allow emergency services to use colloquial road names when responding to callouts. Photo / Dean Purcell

Confusion over the location of a motorcycle accident in which a man was killed has prompted emergency services to use colloquial road names.

Terralink International, the company that provides addresses and location data to police, fire and ambulance, has launched a new website which allows Kiwis to check and confirm they have the right details on how to find them.

Brett Collings of Wellington was riding The Forgotten World Highway, southwest of Taumarunui, which is also known as Ohura Rd or State Highway 43.

While he lay with a punctured lung and ruptured spleen, a witness called 111 to report the incident but knew only the colloquial name for the road.

The name was not on the Terralink database - NZ MasterMap - and an ambulance ended up being sent from Stratford to Douglas, 50km away from the accident. After three 111 calls a rescue helicopter finally arrived at the scene an hour later. Mr Collings died soon after.

Myaddress.co.nz allows people to enter alternative names for roads, suburbs, buildings or farms and provide details on the best entrance points for a property.

Some of the names could be colloquial words used by locals, project names given to the road by a local council or crime hot spots police have given a moniker.

Any new information submitted is verified by Terralink before being added to the database.

St John operations director Tony Blaber said communications centre call takers would still work with 111 callers to confirm exact locations but the new system would increase the range of information already available.

"The new system is expected to particularly help with locations in more remote and isolated areas."

There are about 70,000 named roads in New Zealand and the current database has aliases for about 5 per cent of those.

* Do you know where you are?

(Official Name -Alternative names - Region)

Seagar Ave - Sager Rd - Auckland
Shipwright Lane - The Strand/Hubbard Rd - Auckland
Forrest Hill Rd - Urban Arterial Route 21 - North Shore
Northern Motorway - SH1/Waiwera Motorway - North Shore
Scenic Drive - Twin Coast Discovery Highway - Waitakere
Townson Rd - Townsend Rd - Manukau
Te Rapa Rd - SH1/Great South Rd/G S Rd - Hamilton
Eskdale Drive - SH 5/Napier-Taupo Rd - Napier