Safety of Gordonton Rd questioned
Our sympathies go out to the Puke whanau for their recent losses. Lesley Turinui’s death on Gordonton Rd shortly after attending her son’s tangi raises once again the issue of road safety on this section of State Highway 1B.
The so-called highway is in fact little more than an assemblage of country roads which were originally never intended to carry the traffic they do today. The Gordonton section is the most populated part of the route.
In a Waikato Times article, Mrs Turinui’s brother-in-law, Wiremu Puke, said they had hounded NZTA for years to get the speed limit reduced on Gordonton Rd.
A close cousin was killed in a car crash in 1986. “We have long called for a speed restriction going past our marae, for it to be lowered to 70kmh.”
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Living Streets Hamilton, a pedestrian advocacy group which I coordinate, has also been campaigning for years to get NZTA to recognise the need for pedestrian safety measures on its roads. Not only has there been the tragedy involving Mrs Turinui, we have also recently had a young boy killed on Ruakura Rd in Hamilton, trying to cross the road to get to school, and two elderly pedestrians seriously injured on Queen St (the bypass) in Cambridge. These roads are designated as either country roads or state highways and therefore the speed limit is deemed to be 80 or 100kph, despite the fact that there are significant residential areas nearby. It is really important for as many people as possible to communicate their worries to NZTA and perhaps sheer weight of numbers might bring about some sensible changes. We need to be encouraging walking, cycling and the use of public transport, not making healthy activities into death traps. Near the Gordonton marae, it would be good to have the speed limit lowered to 50kph, as there may often be large numbers of people, including small children, on or near the road. Roads and speed limits should not be designed to kill.