They were not designed to take the number of heavy trucks, going faster and faster, getting longer and longer and carrying much heavier loads.
In 1985, the open road speed limit in NZ was increased from 80km/h to 100km/h.
This was because of better roads and improvements to all vehicle safety standards.
At this time rail was still carrying vast amounts of freight throughout NZ. Now it freights only a fraction of what it used to carry.
Consecutive governments have done nothing to reverse this trend and our roads are falling to bits.
A simple solution would be to place load restrictions on any roads that have a railway station. This would make rail far more cost effective.
Many SH5 improvements have been mooted in the past two decades or so:
• lowering the road by the summit kiosk
• removing the dangerous corner by Te Haroto school
• removing the steep hill to the north of the Tarawera cafe
• eliminating the twisty bit of road to the North of this hill
None of these things happened.
Not long ago I used to travel this road to Tarawera and back nearly every day, sometimes twice a day in all conditions.
I never had an accident mainly because I drove to the conditions.
I witnessed many near misses, bad driving examples and accident scenes.
Sure, there are areas that could be improved but I can only identify two areas where a good driver could have an accident.
One is the Mohaka bridge.
This bridge is built on a major fault line, it could collapse in a big earthquake.
If you have ever walked under this bridge when a fully laden truck goes across it, you will be astounded at the amount of movement/stress this places on the structure.
Why Waka Kotahi has not started planning or purchasing land for a replacement low level bridge astounds me.
Imagine if this vital bridge had to be closed suddenly .
The other area is "Windy Gap" south of Te Haroto.
Why NZTA has not purchased a strip of land on the west side of the road and bulk planted low growing hardy trees, like manuka, to reduce wind velocity escapes me.
A quick fix would be for Waka Kotahi to purchase end-of-life shipping containers, half filled with Mohaka River shingle, and place them along the west side of the road to deflect the wind above the road, rather than across the road.
Or do we have to wait until a fully laden bus is blown over the bank on the eastern side of the road?
Something Waka Kotahi seem to have overlooked is a small minority of drivers choose to travel at 10, 15, or 20km/h less than any posted speed limit, and refuse to pull over to let others past.
That will cause huge tailbacks on SH5, and create frustrated drivers who will take passing risks.
For truck drivers it will be a nightmare as there are very limited long straights or passing lanes to pass slow drivers.
The whole performance of Waka Kotahi needs assessment.
The very busy 2km of SH2 from the SH5/SH2 intersection to the north of Bayview is a dangerous stretch of highway for the residents of at least 67 properties who have to enter and exit SH2 in this area.
It has very poor sight lines and the road surface is appalling.
And yet Waka Kotahi "have no intention of lowering the speed limit to 80km in this area" which some residents asked for.
This makes a mockery of the thousands of dollars Waka Kotahi spent on the current TV advertising programme about appropriate speed limits on all our roads and their stated aim of having zero road deaths on NZ roads.
What we don't want or need is million of dollars spent installing wire barriers along the sides of roads to stop bad drivers injuring or killing themselves.
Centre-line barriers yes, they are a great idea in appropriate places and do save innocent good drivers from injury or death.
But you still have the problem of slow, inconsiderate drivers also.
If NZ wants to reduce the road toll then the quickest cost-effective way of doing this is to remove the road policing role of NZ police and go back to having a dedicated, separate highway patrol organisation.
The increased road policing over the past 15 months of SH5 has been very effective in identifying bad drivers and reducing road crashes.
And bring back an organisation like the MoW which controlled the whole roading process from start to finish, and knew how to build roads.
• Lance Simon is a long time HB resident, now retired, and has been a regular commuter on SH5 for all his life
