A Whangarei District councillor is calling for more red-light cameras to catch those jumping the gun and more arrows painted on roads to reduce motor accidents.
WDC infrastructure services committee chairman Greg Martin wants council to consider these measures itself and to pressure the New Zealand Transport Authority to paintmore direction arrows on state highways through the region and for rental vehicles to carry "keep left" signs on their dashboards.
"In February I want to see an agenda item go before the committee to outline what we already have and what we can afford to do ourselves and how we can work with other agencies to deal with these issues," Cr Martin said.
"We all know that people's ingrained habits kick in when driving, especially in challenging situations. People used to driving on the right hand side of the road, can swing into the path of on-coming traffic without thinking."
He believes more reminder arrows will help keep the left side rule top of mind for visitors. This year one person was killed in the Far North by a foreign tourist crossing the centre line, while an 18-year-old pregnant woman was injured and lost her unborn child on Whangarei Heads Rd. Both accidents involved French tourists.
"This is particularly important in a district with a huge increase in tourism traffic in summer.
"We already have a number of locations with keep left arrows on them, but I believe we could do with more, and I think there need to be more on state highways," Cr Martin said.
There has also been an increase in the number of people running red lights, he said.
"At busy intersections that is a sure recipe for tragedy. Red-light cameras will drive the point home to people who habitually run lights."
The council is awaiting a report about the situation and in the meantime have been addressing the issues that cause increases in red-light running, WDC roading manager Jeff Devine said.
"That behaviour is often driven by frustration by people who feel they will have to wait too long at a set of lights. Sensors under the roads have been failing in some areas because of water getting into joints in the system and causing faults," Mr Devine said.
"We have identified a new piece of hardware and will be progressively replacing the joints. The faults around the Bank St signals should be fixed before Christmas. We are also monitoring the number of red [light] runners through our computer system and are working with the police ... "
