Truck rollovers spark summit

Mike Eagles, left, with Smith and Davies compliance manager Thomas Murray meeting Joanne King and her sons Reuben and Adam. Photo / John Stone

Maungatapere residents terrified by logging truck rollovers on Otaika Valley Rd will meet with police, trucking company representatives and Whangarei District Council engineers next week to discuss how to end the crash carnage.

Maungatapere orchardist Mike Eagles said residents who had called the meeting at the Maungatapere Community Hall at 5pm next Tuesday "didn't want to have a scrap" with the truckies.

"We would just like measures put in place to make the road safer."

Otaika Valley Rd, which runs 10km from State Highway 14 at Maungatapere to the Portland turnoff on State Highway 1, bypasses Whangarei and is a favoured route for logging trucks travelling from the north via Mangakahia Rd and west heading for Marsden Pt.

Numerous logging truck crashes and a fatality on the road last year have been followed by rollovers on February 20 and 27 and on August 9 this year - and a truck is understood to have lost logs on the road early yesterday.

Logging trucks make heavy use of the road now, and it has been estimated that 226 of them will travel over the winding and steep road daily by 2020.

Maungatapere Primary School teachers' aid Joanne King was involved with Mr Eagles in organising next Tuesday's meeting, with help from Whangarei District Council representatives Shelley Deeming and Sharon Morgan.

Whangarei police Sergeant John Fagan and Daron Turner, general manager of Smith & Davies NZ Ltd - which has had trucks rolling on the road - are expected to attend the meeting.

Ms King said it was not just logging trucks speeding over the road. A car had ended up in a ditch on a tight corner last weekend.

But the logging trucks were frightening, she said.

A woman had told Ms King how she had been watching her daughter go down their driveway to wait for the school bus on Otaika Valley Rd when she saw the logging truck which crashed on August 9.

"It came hurtling around a corner. She could see it was out of control and screamed to her daughter to run."

Ms King said she was apprehensive every morning while putting her sons Reuben and Adam on the school bus, wondering if they would be safe travelling to and from school.

The Whangarei District Council has ruled out widening or changing the road camber of Otaika Valley Rd, but residents hope the meeting next week will bring a speed restriction, stronger road policing presence and a promise of safer driving.