Crash survivor: Let’s focus on goal of safety
Like kiwifruit industry, roading system should have strict requirements for keeping people safe, says driver
Almost two years ago, Tina Jennen left her office in Katikati at 3pm for a business meeting in Tauranga. She turned on to State Highway 2 and 200m down the highway her Ford sedan and another car collided head-on. The driver of the other vehicle had fallen asleep at the wheel and suffered a punctured lung and knee injuries.
Rescuers found Jennen screaming amid a jumble of crushed steel and inflated airbags. There were fears the vehicle would explode, and a rescuer risked his life to enter the wreckage and fix a brace around her neck. She credits those rescuers and the airbags with saving her life.
“I will never be fully recovered,” says the mother of four, who suffered a crushed right ankle and damage to her left ankle. She still has pain and stiffness. Technology permitting, she will have two ankle replacements.
The driver of the other car, Jennen said, was traumatised and very apologetic, which helped her family move forward for what was a “terrible, terrible, honest mistake”.
National Party leader and Tauranga MP Simon Bridges calls the stretch of SH2 between Tauranga and Waihi the nation’s most dangerous road. Since 2000, there have been 46 deaths and 153 serious injuries.
In September this year, two people died on the stretch of road. A fiery crash between a car and a truck claimed one life, while in a separate crash a man in his 60s was killed after his car crossed the centreline and smashed into another vehicle.
Sean Lett, a member of the “Fix the Bloody Road” campaign, heard the emergency sirens and knew it was another fatality. “This road is no longer fit for purpose, and it hasn’t been for years . . . we need a four-lane highway all the way from Tauranga to Katikati. This is the only way to fix the road and cut our horrendous death toll,” he told the Bay of Plenty Times.
After a series of public protests, including a h¯ıkoi in October that blocked the highway at the Wairoa Bridge, the NZ Transport Agency announced it will proceed with $101 million safety improvements between Waihi and Omokoroa ¯ in the short and medium term.
It was not the new four-lane highway at the Tauranga end being sought by many and promised by the previous National Party Government, but a new two-lane route and safety improvements in line with the Labour-led Government’s vision for safer roads.
NZTA has also started designing and finding funding for similar safety improvements for the stretch of SH2 between O¯ mokoroa and Te Puna, and planning a new highway between Te Puna and Tauriko. This will have two lanes rather than the four initially proposed.
Bridges said everyone agrees with safety improvements, but the huge growth around Tauranga requires a fundamental transport fix that improves safety and efficiency.
Jennen applauds the Government for taking a pragmatic approach to safety improvements, like installing median barriers that prevent head-on crashes. But the American-born community leader said New Zealand was a small country with limited resources and roads that were not to the standard she was accustomed to driving on in the United States. She believes the answer to better roads, including a four-lane highway on SH2, lies in public-private partnerships (PPPs).
Her thoughts are mirrored by those of the Automobile Association’s principal adviser Barney Irvine, who said the Government’s road safety improvements made good sense and would make a meaningful difference. But Irvine said the AA was concerned about the lack of firm plans for new roads and key projects, like the Tauranga Northern Link, O¯ taki to north of Levin and a new highway between Whanga¯rei and Port Marsden.
He said the Government had signalled these projects would eventually be built with two lanes, not four lanes, but made no commitments about when.
“We’re left with a whole lot of unanswered questions, like how many deaths and serious injuries would delaying these projects cost us? How long will the existing roads cope with increased traffic volumes?” Irvine said.
Jennen compared the deaths on the roads with the local kiwifruit industry, which had to be accountable for the safety of workers, particularly around riding quad bikes.
“That same standard isn’t being applied on our roads that everybody is affected by. Let’s focus on one goal so we can make people safe, whether they are on a kiwifruit orchard or on a highway,” she said.
After the accident, Jennen chose a new job that required her to commute south on the four-lane Tauranga East Link toll road instead, which she described as a “night and day difference”.
“I’m not driving to Katikati, it’s just not worth it, not when you open the paper every other day and there is another serious incident.”