Kia ora tātou, the school holidays are coming up and with that, an upsurge in the traffic on our roads. Be patient if you're travelling and allow extra time as a large number of visitors will be either passing through or stopping in our area.
The weather is appalling at the moment. It's cold, it's icy, it's wet and it's often quite dark even during the daytime too. So although I say this every winter, I'll say it again: please drive to the conditions. So far we've only had the one really cold snap but it caught quite a few drivers unawares and sent them sliding off the road and into banks, culverts and the like. Luckily nobody was seriously injured, but if they had slid into oncoming traffic it could have been a different story.
Last Sunday morning alone we were called to four cars sliding off the road, three of them on Waihi Hill and another on the Te Ponanga Saddle between Tokaanu and Rotoaira and there have been three trucks sliding around on the Desert Rd. A lot of the crashes have been because of ice and/or wet conditions, so our message remains the same: take your time, slow down. Check your vehicle and make sure it's up to standard and most of all, drive to the conditions.
Speaking of the roads, NZ Police are running Operation Deterrence and it focuses on four areas: restraints (seatbelts and car seats), impairments (drink, drugs, fatigue, medication), distraction (cellphones) and speed. Tūrangi Police are proactively engaging with and educating the community around these four areas, but where needed we'll also use the appropriate consequences of enforcement which, in some cases, will mean issuing tickets.
