Petition to get speed bumps in Keyte St, Whangarei, after fatal crash

Keyte St resident Erin Judkins says drivers use the road as a speedway. Photo / Michael Cunningham

A fatal crash on a suburban Whangarei street has been the catalyst for a resident starting a petition calling for the council to install speed bumps to slow traffic.

Keyte St resident Erin Judkins says streets around her all have traffic calming measures but her street, where she has lived for 11 years, has become a "speedway".

However, Whangarei District Council has said some work to slow traffic had been done and so the street is excluded from the slow streets prioritisation.

The death of 20-year-old back-seat passenger Shane Harema, of Whangarei, on New Year's Eve sparked Judkins' petition. Harema was in a car that rolled and came to a stop suspended on a fence metres from a Keyte St house.

Two other men and a dog in the car at the time were unhurt. Investigations into the crash are continuing and charges are likely.

A passenger was killed when this car ended suspended in a Keyte St fence. Photo / Danica MacLean

Judkins said Mains Ave and King St had traffic calming measures, which forced traffic down Keyte St where there was "nothing".

"Traffic consistently uses our suburban street as a speedway. Predominantly it's a quiet street but speeding traffic is a real problem."

She said young children used the road during the school term to head home to Otangarei.

"We just don't want an innocent child killed by a speeding driver."

She has about 100 signatures on the petition calling for speed bumps to be put in Keyte St. She present it to the council's first meeting of the year next month, when she will also speak in the public forum section of the meeting.

Council roading manager Jeff Devine said the council prioritised traffic calming work on streets according to a standard set of road safety criteria, including proximity to schools, pedestrian activities, likelihood of cut-through traffic, road function, road characteristics and speed-related crash history.

He said socio-economic factors were not considered.

"We have had about five requests for traffic calming on Keyte St in the past two years. The street has traffic calming kerb build-outs and a roundabout, so it is currently excluded from the slow streets prioritisation," he said.

The council had an annual slow streets budget of $100,000 that paid for calming work on two streets a year. This year it was allocated to Lupton Ave and Manse St, beside the Kamo shared path.

"However, we will reconsider this street when we implement traffic calming on Churchill St, which is the highest priority on our list, and is the only street due for traffic calming in this area.''