Elderly Northland couple tell of near-miss on Brynderwyn Hills detour route

An elderly Northland couple are grateful to be alive after a large truck nearly collided head-on with their car near a one-lane bridge on a “dangerous” Brynderwyns detour route.

Danielle Adams posted a video of her parents’ close call last Tuesday. The footage shows a truck apparently failing to give way to Brian and Dorothy Adams at a narrow bridge on the Paparoa-Oakleigh Rd.

Brian Adams, 78, said the incident “frightened the living daylights out of us”.

The video shows the couple approaching the one-way bridge when suddenly a truck and trailer unit hurtles toward them tooting its horn. It narrowly misses their car.

Adams said it happened so quickly.

“Lucky he [the truck driver] tooted his horn. Stones went all over our car, lucky he didn’t break the window.”

Danielle, from Kaiwaka, claimed the truck failed to give way to her parents, who live in Paparoa and were on their way to a hospital appointment.

Danielle Adams (left) is thankful her parents, Brian and Dorothy Adams, are alive after a truck nearly crashed into them on the Paparoa-Oakleigh Rd detour route.

Danielle said she’s thankful her parents are alive and “so grateful” they recently bought a new car with special braking systems.

“If they didn’t have that car, it wouldn’t have stopped in time.”

Danielle is now questioning why the Paparoa-Oakleigh Rd detour route – which is being used as one of three detour routes while State Highway 1 over the Brynderwyn Hills is closed for 10 weeks – has no safety measures in place.

That’s a stark contrast to the Cove Rd detour through Mangawhai, which she drove through two days after her parent’s “near-miss”. It has road cones, traffic lights, and reduced speed signs at each of the five one-lane bridges.

Danielle posted her driving experience in the same video to show the difference between the two detour routes.

She wants Paparoa-Oakleigh Rd “to be set up like Mangawhai-Cove Rd to keep everyone safe”.

“Why does the Mangawhai detour have all the safety precautions for one-way bridges, and Paparoa-Oakleigh has absolutely nothing?

“There’s out-of-towners that go through, and a lot of trucks use that road.

“Something needs to change before someone gets killed.”

A Northland Transportation Alliance (NTA) spokesperson said temporary traffic lights were put in place on the Cove Rd detour route to manage queuing at the bridges.

“We anticipated queuing due to traffic volumes on this route and it was prudent to manage this to avoid poor driver behaviour as a result of excessive delays,” the spokesperson said.

“The same measures were not put in place on the Paparoa-Oakleigh route as excessive queuing was not anticipated and... this assumption has been accurate to date.

“All of the one-lane bridges on both local road detour routes have clear priority signage and motorists are reminded to please observe these priority give way rules for the safety of all road users.”

There were calls to ban trucks entirely from the Paparoa-Oakleigh Rd after a logging truck crashed on February 26, the day the Brynderwyns closure started.

The crash blocked both lanes for hours, causing major delays.

Northland Chamber of Commerce president Tim Robinson said truck and trailer units up to 50 tonnes, which are currently allowed to share the road with light vehicles, should travel the SH12 and SH14 detour through Dargaville.

Heavy vehicles were also recently banned from using Millbrook Rd after residents raised concerns that logging trucks were using it as a shortcut to and from SH1 at Waipu via the Paparoa-Oakleigh Rd detour.

Jenny Ling is a news reporter and features writer for the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering roading, lifestyle, business, and animal welfare issues.