Drivers worse at lights in spite of extensive publicity

A car and a Sub60 courier van run a red light as they leave Grafton Bridge for Karangahape Rd on Thursday. Picture / Greg Bowker

Auckland drivers are being urged to take a good look at themselves - after another shameless display of red-light running across a notorious city intersection.

Exactly a week after the Weekend Herald spotted 43 vehicles running the red at the Karangahape Rd-Symonds St intersection, reporters returned to the scene of the crime and found even worse recklessness.

In one hour, again from 2.30pm to 3.30pm on Thursday afternoon, 46 vehicles were counted entering the intersection after the lights turned red.

That was despite a flood of messages from readers condemning the practice, following the Herald's exposure of law-breaking antics at the spot where two people have been killed and six others injured by red-light runners over five years.

The offending vehicles this time included three buses, two trucks, two taxis, a motorcycle and a Sub60 courier van - in a replay of last week, when another of that company's contractors was photographed running the red from Grafton Bridge to Karangahape Rd.

On the other side of the ledger, a walker and a cyclist were almost hit by cars while using a pedestrian crossing against red lights.

The findings have disappointed but not surprised city road-policing manager Inspector Heather Wells, who supports a funding bid by the Auckland Regional Transport Authority to the Government for a $400,000 trial of red-light cameras at the CBD's 11 most dangerous intersections for pedestrians.

"It is time for motorists to take a good look at themselves," she said yesterday. "People need to plan their journeys better and allow more time.

"They don't seem to realise they could end someone's life - they need to de-stress themselves."

Stephen Leys, the employer of a motorcyclist killed by a red-light runner at the same intersection last year, expressed dismay that publicity the Herald gave was evidently not getting through to drivers.

"It seems crazy," he said. "There are two ways of changing people's behaviour - persuasion hasn't worked so that leaves only coercion, meaning red-light cameras."

A Sub60 manager expressed dismay that two of its contractors had been caught twice on the Herald's cameras, and promised to get them to change their ways.

"Oh no," he said after the Herald told him about their behaviour.