Editorial: Recipe for toxic tourist soup brews on our roads

The crash scene where two Northland women died.

One of the many tragic aspects of the fatal car crash involving an American tourist is that it is going to happen again.

Two Saturdays ago, Thomas Springer, 66, drove on the wrong side of the road on State Highway 10, near the junction of Puketona Rd in Oromahoe.

Two Northland women, one of whom was heavily pregnant, died in the collision.

There will be more road deaths in Northland involving tourists from countries where motorists drive on the opposite side of the road to us, just as there are fatal accidents in America or Europe involving Southern Hemisphere drivers.

Because there are only going to be more tourists coming. A coronial inquiry will look into the cause of the accident, and the victims' deaths, and what can be done to avoid it happening again. The accident was near an intersection.

These are problematic as they are disorientating for drivers who enter them, and as they exit, revert to habit, muscle memory, call it what you will.

But it is easy, having done it myself driving in Europe, to enter a roundabout or intersection on the right side of the road, and come out on the wrong side.

So how do we educate drivers? Through hire companies? Through road side signs? Through in-vehicle messages? An Advocate staff member driving on foreign soil used a "keep right" message on the dashboard to stay safe. Our roading network is dangerous already, look at the proliferation of log truck accidents. Throw in growing numbers of confused foreign drivers and we have a problem.

We also don't want tourism to be the industry that gives with one hand, and takes away lives with the other. Because the last thing we need is a toxic soup of resentment toward tourists who also have a partial hold on the key to unlocking the region's true economic potential.

It is in the interests of many people that Northland leads the way in solving this safety conundrum, so that no one - including the driver - has to go through what several families have experienced in the past few weeks.