Norfolk pines line the 100kmh stretch of road on both sides, and wire ropes were installed to stop people hitting them. Photo / Warren Buckland
New crash statistics show the rate of crashes on the 3km of State Highway 51 (formerly SH2) between Ellison St and Awatoto Rd to the south off Marine Parade is increasing.
The statistics, provided by NZTA, reveal five fatalities from a total of 75 crashes since the start of 2010.
But three of the deaths, and 46 of the crashes, happened in the last four years.
The three most-recent fatalities in the 2km sidelined by the rope barriers and trees south of Ellison St have all happened in the last 20 months, including that five days ago of 37-year-old school teacher and Napier man David Trousdell.
He died when his southbound car crossed the road and collided with an oncoming truck about 400m south of Ellison St in fine and clear conditions about 11.10am last Thursday.
The truck, a tallow tanker with its driver apparently trying to avoid both the car and direct impact with a tree, crashed through the wire rope on the inland railway side of the highway, swiped a tree and overturned.
In the two next most-recent fatal crashes in the area, both at night, a teenaged female died when the car she was in collided with a truck near the entrance to one of two entrances to the reserve on the seaward side of the highway in September 2018.
And a man died when his car crossed the road and struck a tree on April 24 last year, just south of the end of the wire-rope barrier on the inland side of the road and barely 100m from the site of last week's tragedy.
Road width – about 3m in each lane and less than a metre off to the side on the treacherous stretch - has been one of the factors in crashes over the years, as has alignment.
Following a multiple fatality when a car hit a tree on the seaward side of the road, again near the site of last week's crash, time-lapse photography of moving vehicle headlights on the highway at night revealed regular patterns of vehicles veering out of their lanes at the same point, which was considered a possible pointer to crashes in the area.
As a result, cats-eyes were installed along the centre line to help guide traffic.
Speed has also been considered, including lowering the limit to 80km/h in the Napier-Clive stretch of SH51 as a scenic route, but the restriction remains at the open-road speed limit of 100km/h, although the Ellison St-Awatoto Rd stretch is now within the Napier city boundary.
Waka Kotahi NZTA regional transport systems manager Oliver Postings said every fatal crash is investigated and a report completed "to determine, among other things, whether the road was a contributing factor".
Asked what consideration has been given to major reconstruction of the road, including widening, realignment or aspects of the intersection of Ellison St, which becomes part of SH51 continuing on to Georges Dr, he said: "Waka Kotahi looked at several options for this section of the highway, including removing the trees closest to the road."
"However, there was a lack of public support to remove the trees, so the wire rope barriers were installed in front of the trees closest to the road edge as a way to protect from roadside hazards," he said.
Police Eastern District road policing manager Inspector Matt Broderick said on Monday the investigation of last week's tragedy is ongoing with the "level of devastation" of the vehicles in the impact such that it would take time for evidence to be obtained from the wreckage.
He confirmed that the southbound car had crossed the road and collided with the truck in the northbound lane, and that the car did not hit a tree, and said that the truck driver was "very lucky" to avoid his cab having a direct impact with the trees, between which the vehicle "squeezed" after leaving the road before it overturned.
"It is an iconic road because of the trees," Broderick said. "Obviously when they were planted a long time ago no one would have considered what the road would have become."
Workmen have in recent days gradually removed the remaining tallow from where it had ponded between the highway and the railway tracks.
- An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the New Zealand Transport Agency was mulling removing some of the Norfolk pines to increase safety on the road. It considered this in the past, but is not currently considering it.