Safety steps prevent repeat of tragedy

Tracy Hurst-Porter has experienced first-hand the grief of losing a loved one on a dangerous road.

But she also knows it's possible to improve road conditions so no one else will die the way her mother Maureen Hill and three friends did in August 2004.

The accident happened when the car they were travelling in crossed the centre line on SH1 between Pukerua Bay and Paekakariki north of Wellington.

The driver of the ute their car hit, Donald Marshall, 64, was severely injured and spent a week in hospital.

Hurst-Porter said the road was unforgiving, with the sea on one side and a railway line on the other: "There's literally nowhere to go."

Soon after the crash, Transit reduced the speed limit to 80km/h and installed 700m of wire rope barrier.

At a hearing into her mother's death in April 2005, Hurst-Porter and relatives of other road victims asked why safety measures had not been put in place earlier.

But Hurst-Porter said it was comforting to know the wire had been installed.