Residents want change
The residents of a small South Canterbury settlement on State Highway 1 are fed up and fear people will die at a dangerous intersection unless action is taken immediately.
Often first on the scene of devastating crashes along the road they live and work on, Cor and Helen Bot and Ian and Gail Jacobs are demanding changes at the intersection of State Highway 1 and SH79 at Rangitata, which sits between Timaru and Ashburton, and have launched a petition they hope will force action.
‘‘We are always the first ones on the scene and . . . it’s not very good for you to watch these people in agony.
‘‘We’ve been here almost 12 years and . . . seen so many near misses and real accidents,’’ Cor Bot said.
Bot believed the best and cheapest solution was to reduce the speed limit to 70kmh through the settlement and intersection.
He said the major issue was with motorists turning off SH79 on to SH1 ‘‘thinking that it’s a merging strip’’ on to SH1 and then ‘‘finding themselves in trouble’’.
During a roadside interview with Stuff yesterday, that is exactly what happened. A motorist failed to give way to an oncoming truck and trailer unit – the truck driver forced to take evasive action while sounding his horn.
Bot said it was something he was pleased to see captured on camera.
It is not the first time the Bots have raised concerns about the intersection – which is the first for motorists travelling from Christchurch to access the Mackenzie Basin.
‘‘We just hear the tooting and the screeching . . . I would say there’s between 15 and 20 near misses per day,’’ he said.
Oasis Tearooms owners Ian and Gail Jacobs also believe the only solution is to reduce the speed limit.
The Jacobs’ business is less than 300m from the intersection and they’ve launched a petition calling for a 70kmh limit – which has attracted more than 140 signatures since it was launched just over three months ago.
‘‘We’ve been here over two years now, and look at the accidents that have happened,’’ Gail Jacobs said.
Jacobs said they had also seen many near misses at the intersection.
Three people were injured, one seriously, after the driver of a rental vehicle did a U-turn into the path of an oncoming truck at the intersection earlier this month.
The intersection has been the scene of a number of other crashes and was, in December 2017, confirmed for safety improvement work which has yet to be undertaken. The proposed work includes the installation of electronic temporary speed limit signs that activate and reduce speed limits from 100kmh to 60kmh or 70kmh if a vehicle is turning into or off SH1.
The work was announced in 2017 as part of a $22.5 million Government programme of planned safety improvements to improve national road safety.
NZ Transport Agency senior traffic and safety engineer David Scarlet said the agency was awaiting changes to the power supply to enable installation of the electronic temporary speed limit signs.
‘‘The transport agency also has an improvement project to extend the right-turn bay on SH1, widen the section of SH1 adjacent to the SH79 intersection and to install new street lighting.
‘‘This is planned for next summer 2019/20,’’ Scarlet said in a statement.