Road safety measures for rural highways announced

AUCKLAND: Rumble strips, safety barriers and wider shoulders will be installed as part of a road safety package to improve rural highways on the the West Coast and in Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and ManawatuWhanganui.

The next stage in the Safety Boost Programme — $20 million to upgrade 670km across 11 rural state highways — was announced yesterday by Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter.

‘‘The Boost Programme includes simple safety upgrades that can be installed quickly over the summer period, such as rumble strips, roadside safety barriers in highrisk locations, shoulder widening, and improved signage,’’ Ms Genter said.

The targeted highways did not have the highest levels of traffic, but were full of risky sections such as sharp corners and nar

row stretches, she said.

Rumble strips can reduce fatal runoffroad crashes by up to 42%, while shoulder widening at highrisk sites can reduce serious crashes by up to 35%.

‘‘All drivers make mistakes from time to time. Safety improvements like these stop simple mistakes turning into tragedies,’’ Ms Genter said.

Work on the upgrades will start today and the aim is to finish by July.

Ms Genter said these improvements would be additional to the 870km of upgrades in the Government’s $1.4 billion Safe Network Programme for highvolume state highways, which hopes to save 160 lives and serious injuries by 2021.

Safety Boost has already made upgrades — including almost 2000km of rumble strips, 30km of road safety barriers, and lower speed zones for highrisk intersections — to roads in Otago and Southland, Northland, Taranaki and ManawatuWhanganui.

The road toll was 379 in 2018, the highest since 2009 and much higher than in 2013, when it was 253. — NZME