Weekend Herald inquiry: Running the red lights

Glen Rogers, who was hit by a red-light runner. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Running red lights - it's a deadly national pastime, and Auckland drivers appear among the most oblivious to the human destruction it causes.

In one hour on Thursday afternoon, before the homeward rush, the Weekend Herald counted 43 red-light runners at a single central Auckland intersection.

That meant red lights were ignored at almost every second phase change at the intersection of Symonds St, Karangahape Rd, Grafton Bridge and the adjoining motorway on-ramp.

Two of the offending vehicles were buses, one was a taxi, and two were cyclists.

Eight other buses - and a hospital-bound ambulance without its siren on - entered the intersection on amber lights which changed to red before they got clear.

Motorists and pedestrians waiting for the green light may have been less eager to cross had they known only five out of 92 phase changes in the hour would be free of opposing traffic entering the intersection on at least an amber signal.

There were no collisions, and only one close call, between two speeding cars after they cleared the intersection and were veering left to reach the motorway.

The intersection is one of seven in Auckland City to have claimed a life in the past five years - a pedestrian in 2003 - and is ranked the worst for the social cost of death and injuries caused there. That is estimated at $4.2 million over five years.

Land Transport NZ says there were 427 injury-causing crashes at Auckland City intersections between 2001 and last year. Five of these caused the deaths of vehicle occupants, and two killed pedestrians. Sixty-five of the injuries were serious.

The cost of 135 red-light crashes in central Auckland alone is put at $63.9 million. All but one of the deaths occurred in the past three years, when there were 275 injury-causing crashes at red lights in Auckland City - 42 per cent of New Zealand's red-light injury smashes.

The police have attended a further 50 in Auckland City this year, of which nine resulted in serious injuries.

The scale of the problem has prompted police and city council officials to support an Auckland Regional Transport Authority application to the Government to subsidise a three-year trial of red-light cameras, at a cost of $400,000.

The Land Transport NZ board is expected to consider the application within weeks, although it is likely to take several more months to set up the trial of two or more digital cameras, to be used at the city's 11 worst intersections.

Officials deny planning a revenue-grab, but a single camera in action during the Herald's survey could have raised $6450 if every offender was fined the standard $150.

At that rate, it would take only 62 hours at one intersection to pay for the trial.

The Herald began its survey at 2.30pm on Thursday, and within two minutes a station wagon travelling from Grafton Bridge towards Karangahape Rd was driven through a red light. A minute later, a car sped from the other direction through a red light to the bridge.

On the next signal change, two cars ran one after the other through the red phase from the bridge.

Two minutes went by with only amber infringements - which police do not regard as serious enough to warrant a fine - before two drivers apparently did not see red at 2.37pm. One minute later, another ran the light.

At 2.41pm, a tour bus went south along Symonds St through a red signal, at 2.42pm an Alfa Romeo car ran the light in its rush to the motorway, and at 2.43pm a 4WD crashed the red behind two cars which had left the bridge on the amber.

The low point of the hour came in the three minutes from 3.10pm, when four cars, a bus and a bicycle were driven through the red.