Testing the effect of a speed curb

"Are you sure my passenger wasn't waving at you?" driver Alex Simpson says sheepishly down his cellphone after I tracked his number down.

That was no 'wave', that was the 'finger', directed at me for doing 80km/h, the new proposed speed limit on State Highway 2, one of the country's most notorious roads.

Mr Simpson, who was driving to Pauanui at the time, apologises and acknowledges the road running 33km from the bottom of the Bombay Hills to the Thames turnoff past Maramarua is a "horrible highway".

He doesn't, however, think the speed limit should be below 90km - but locals are far more enthusiastic.

Most who live near the highway or drive it every day supported the proposed move, which Transit and the police will discuss this week.

At Petticoat Junction Cafe just north of the turnoff to Thames, Cherie Collis says the problem is not the road, it's the drivers.

A safety sign outside her cafe is passed by a stream of traffic tailgating each other within metres.

She says speed should be curbed.

"How often have there been accidents in the last three months?" she says. "So often we've forgotten."

At the Black Beagle Cafe, Aucklanders Judy and Alan Kemp have stopped for lunch.

They want the speed limit lowered but say the passing lanes cause just as much trouble.

"We see people misjudging overtaking at the end of the passing lanes and not leaving enough room to get back in," Mrs Kemp says.

"A caravan was overtaking a truck half an hour ago."

In Maramarua, where the limit is 70km/h, Kay Broadbent said people sped through the area anyway.

"Last year we saw an accident a week for one month. I think it's a good idea to lower speed limits."

Just short of Mangatawhiri a white Toyota pulls out of a line of traffic and overtakes.

A road sign right in front of the driver says there are overtaking lines in just 400 metres.

A white cross is almost hidden on the far side of the road saying a man named Chris died there.

Truck driver Robin Greenland is parked on the roadside just short of the Mangatawhiri settlement talking on his cellphone.

He said the limit could be lowered but police needed to patrol the road in marked cars.

"I can come down here some days and not see a police car."

At the Castle Cafe in Mangatawhiri, where the limit is 80km/h, Hannah Keen is serving customers.

"People don't do 80 through here anyway. There's an accident every couple of weeks or so."

Carol Leonard from Auckland has stopped at the cafe for lunch.

"If it saves lives I'm for it. Speed kills. It's proven again and again."

Waikato police traffic manager Inspector Leo Tooman said police would meet Transit to discuss lowering the limit between Mangatawhiri and Maramarua.

Work on a 7.2km bypass between the Mangatawhiri Bridge and Maramarua Golf Course is expected to be complete by 2008 but Mr Tooman said there needed to be more immediate action to prevent more deaths being added to the 35 people killed on the road in the past five years.

"If drivers are at a lower speed, if they make an error they have more time to correct it."

He said accidents had dried up since work was done around Mercer to Long Swamp on State Highway 1 and the speed limit cut to 80km/h.