Transit NZ urged to dump passing lane

Transit New Zealand is under pressure to abolish a passing lane on northern Waikato's notorious Maramarua highway after two fatal crashes in almost identical circumstances - the latest on Sunday.

Local residents, including the driver of a horse truck struck while waiting to turn right from State Highway 2 into Kopuku Rd at the start of the eastbound passing lane, are angry that it has taken two deaths to spark a review disclosed by Transit yesterday.

They say signs advising of the passing lane confuse motorists, provoking them to speed up through the marked turnoff, and that the lane is too short to guarantee safe overtaking in any case.

Officials of the roading agency met police yesterday to examine the turnoff, where Lynette Pickard, her mother and two children in the horse truck were waiting for a break in heavy holiday traffic to turn off the highway.

They were hit from behind and shunted across the road by a fishmonger's truck driven by 35-year-old Dayle Aiden Eynon of Whitianga, who died in the crash.

"I didn't hear anything but the screech of brakes and the next thing I was on the other side of the road," said Mrs Pickard, whose adolescent children suffered minor injuries.

Two children of Mr Eynon, aged 4 and 10, were also hurt in the crash and taken to Middlemore Hospital, but have since been sent home.

Four other people have been killed at or near the spot in the past 15 months in two road crashes, one of which was almost identical to the latest tragedy.

A woman was killed in August last year when the car in which she was a passenger moved to overtake another vehicle but ploughed into a truck-and-trailer unit waiting to make a right-hand turn into Kopuku Rd.

Three people were killed in a single crash in January, but they were in a car heading in the other direction which crossed the centre line and hit a 40-tonne truck.

National's Port Waikato MP, Paul Hutchison, says Transit ignored a warning in February when he and a local resident met a senior official to express concern that having signs promoting the passing lane before the turnoff was "a recipe for further deaths".

"Both Transit and the Government have acted with reckless irresponsibility in not doing more to upgrade SH2, which [has] had about 40 deaths in five years," Dr Hutchison said.

He is preparing to present a petition with more than 1000 signatures to Parliament, calling for a four-lane expressway to be built within 10 years from Pokeno to the turnoff to Paeroa, a 35km stretch.

Avril Thomson, the resident with Dr Hutchison at the meeting, said last night that she had reminded the Transit official less than a fortnight ago that the signs remained hazards and she feared what might happen if they were not removed.

When she heard fire-engine sirens headed for the latest crash, she felt so angry "I can't repeat the words I said".

Mrs Pickard said she and her family had suffered many "near misses" at the turnoff in the three years they had lived nearby, and believed the passing lane should be removed immediately.

The Transit official has since left the agency but Waikato regional manager Chris Allen said there were many other places where turnoffs led to passing lanes. "There is nothing wrong or illegal about that."

Even so, he said his staff were inspecting the Kopuku turnoff to make safety recommendations, which could involve reducing or abolishing the passing lane, or making some other provision for slow vehicles to allow other traffic to overtake them.