'I've had a gutsful': Tauranga bus driver's beef with impatient drivers at busy SH29 intersection

Tauranga bus driver Elieen Lally has had a "gutsful" of people driving over the centre line while queuing for the Cambridge Rd and State Highway 29 intersection. Photo / Andrew Warner

The intersection of State Highway 29 and Cambridge Rd is one of the many transport hot-spots under pressure in Tauranga. Aside from accommodating the heavy flow of traffic from Hamilton, it also is a route for many residents to The Lakes and beyond. Bay of Plenty Times reporter Jean Bell speaks to a Tauranga bus driver who is calling out drivers on their subtly dangerous driving at the intersection.

A Tauranga bus driver has had a "gutsful" of drivers prematurely diverging into two turning lanes a busy Tauranga intersection and is calling on authorities to resolve the safety hazard.

Eileen Lally regularly drives through the Cambridge Rd and State Highway 29 on her bus route.

She said "impatient" drivers, heading towards the intersection to turn left to The Lakes or turn right to go towards Hamilton, often separated into two rows of traffic on the single-lane road well ahead of the intersection.

"I've had a gutsful of this," she said.

"It's just patience - there's nothing wrong with the road."

The cars that prematurely diverged on the left had to contend with the bumpy and pot-holed side of the road, which had left multiple cars end up on a roadside ditch over time, she said.

On the right-hand side, cars queuing to turn right were pushed over the yellow line as the road was only single-laned, risking a crash with oncoming traffic.

Lally said she was "horrified" to see other motorists, including bus drivers, turning right dangerously teetered over the middle line.

"Bus drivers have got children in their hands ... [children are] precious cargo," she said.

"It's getting out of hand. There will be a head-on there."

She said she had been to the police and council multiple times in the last 18 months and said nothing had been done.

She called for bollards to be placed down the yellow double centre line to stop the double row queuing.

Cambridge Rd resident Heather Jones has lived near the intersection for three years and believed widening the road to accommodate two rows of traffic would help alleviate the issue.

Jones said the "extremely dangerous" section of road was not made for two queues of traffic but the issue was part of a wider traffic problem in the Tauriko and Lakes area.

She said the road was packed during peak times in the morning and evening.

Jones believed people who were crossing the double yellow line to turn right at the intersection would naturally be cautious when doing so.

Tauranga City Council transportation manager Martin Parkes said the council had received a "small number of concerns" about the intersection in the past.

"It is accepted that this queuing over the centreline is not desirable," he said.

He said no complaints about people driving over the yellow line had been lodged.

He said three crashes had been reported on the section of road between Villa Ridge cafe and the intersection, one of which resulted in serious injury.

Two crashes were nose-to-tail crashes that involved cars queuing or slowing while approaching the intersection. The third was an intersection crash at the Oakridge Place intersection.

The council had received no reports of head-on crashes.

He said the future of the intersection tied into the work underway with the Urban Form and Transport Initiative, a collaboration between the NZ Transport Agency and Smart Growth.