Speed limits cut at highway black spots

By MATHEW DEARNALEY and ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

Speed limits are being reduced on dangerous stretches of rural highway.

Transit NZ's imposition today of an 80km/h limit on 2km of State Highway 10 in the Bay of Islands, north and south of the main turnoff to Kerikeri, will be followed by more extensive "safe-zone" trials at other accident black spots.

Traffic has been restricted to 80km/h since December on the winding 8km section of State Highway 1 north of Hatfields Beach, reducing the severity of crashes after the loss of 12 lives on the road since 1990.

This has encouraged Transit to consider similar trials on roads north of Tauranga and in the Manawatu Gorge.

Last month it cut the limit to 80km/h on about 10km of State Highway 1 south of Paekakariki within days of a crash that killed four elderly people.

Transit's new chief executive, Rick van Barneveld, told the Herald in July that the agency under his leadership would not hesitate to reduce speed limits where there was too little opportunity for motorists to recover from driving errors.

But the Automobile Association, while saying it accepted safety must come first, does not want Transit to become too reliant on cutting limits as a "soft option" delaying engineering improvements.

"Because in the long term we deserve in New Zealand to have a state highway network reliable enough to move people at 100km/h," AA transport policy general manager Stephen Selwood said yesterday.

Transit traffic and design manager Dr Dennis Davis acknowledged zones could vary from "stopgap" measures to more permanent features, but said his prime concern was safety.

His organisation is reducing the Kerikeri intersection speed limit while considering whether to build a roundabout.

This follows 25 crashes in the past five years either at the intersection itself or within 1km north or south. About 6000 vehicles a day pass through the area.

Transit is also consulting Western Bay of Plenty residents on its plan for an 80km/h zone on about 8km of State Highway 2 between Omokoroa and Bethlehem, backed by the removal of two passing lanes and the addition of oversized and double-spaced no-overtaking lines.

This follows 103 crashes in the past five years, six of which were fatal.

Project manager John Hannah said crashes would only increase without such safety measures, as daily traffic volumes were expected to swell from 14,000 vehicles now to 19,000 in six years.

Four-laning projects in the area were unlikely to start for at least 10 years.

But Mr Hannah, who is hosting a public open day on Monday at Te Puna Memorial Hall to outline the changes, indicated that harassed motorists dealing with growing traffic jams on Western Bay of Plenty roads could find the lower limit adding just seconds to travel times.

"Our studies show that reducing the average speed to 80km/h will increase the average travel time by up to 34 seconds."

Dr Davis said the problem with a blanket 100km/h limit was that not enough motorists were attuned to adjusting their speeds to road conditions.

But he acknowledged that lower limits could, unless used sparingly, prove counter-productive by frustrating motorists and leading to more unsafe driving.

Transit would monitor trial zones carefully before more changes.