Appeals for safety upgrades

The success of safety barriers on the recently opened Ka¯piti expressway has prompted calls for more to be done on the rest of the country’s roads.

New figures from the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) show there was just one serious injury crash on the highway in the two years after it opened, compared with seven on the old route in the two years prior.

There have been no fatal crashes on the new State Highway 1 route, which runs for 18 kilometres between Mackays and Peka Peka, north of Wellington.

And the reduction in traffic volumes on the old route – now a local road – has contributed to a decrease in serious injury crashes there as well – down to just three in the two years since the expressway opened.

Automobile Association road safety spokesman Dylan Thomsen said a major reason for the low injury rate on the expressway was the installation of median and side barriers. They had been struck at least 51 times in the two years to February, most likely preventing head-on crashes and subsequently saving lives.

‘‘It’s impossible to know how many of the 51 times the barriers were hit prevented a tragedy but there will be people alive today who wouldn’t be here if that road was undivided.’’

That was proof more needed to be done to improve safety on the rest of the country’s roads, Thomsen said.

The Government announced late last year that up to $1.5 billion would be invested in road safety upgrades under its new Safe Network Programme.

That would result in safety improvements on 870 kilometres of high-risk, high-volume state highways and local roads across the country by 2021.

But Thomsen said those measures did not go far enough. ‘‘If you look at one of the world’s

leading road safety nations, Sweden, they have a similar-sized road network to New Zealand and more than 5000km of divided highway.

‘‘In New Zealand, we will hopefully get past the mark of 500km of divided highway by 2021.’’

The success of the $649 million expressway was proof of what could be achieved, Thomsen said.

‘‘The fact the Ka¯piti expressway is heading towards three years without any deaths on it, and has had only one serious injury crash in its first two years, shows what can be done through good safety engineering and barriers.’’

A NZTA spokesperson said the Safe Network Programme aimed to prevent up to 160 deaths and serious injuries each year.