Local Focus: Caution at Hamilton's five-way intersection on the corner of Victoria, Liverpool and Ulster Streets

The intersection has a low incident rate. Made with funding from NZ on Air.

Some Hamilton motorists say they're playing Russian Roulette with the city's only five-way intersection.

"The lights just don't work here, you can't get out of this intersection at all," one driver said.

"The traffic from the other side basically just fills up the entire phase."

It's the intersection of Victoria, Ulster and Liverpool Streets but it's traffic coming from Liverpool Street East, on the river side which was feeling the pain.

One driver, who uses the river side of Liverpool Street regularly, said it was impossible to guess which street opposing left-turning traffic was turning into, leading to traffic running red lights just to turn right through the intersection.

"Turning right onto Victoria Street is a pain at this time of night," another motorist said. "If there were some changes it would be a vast improvement, especially an arrow for right turns which would help a congested intersection."

"It's almost like you take your life into your own hands," one woman motorist said. "Because otherwise you would sit there for 30 minutes if you waited for a break in the traffic.

"Because there is never a break in the traffic, so you have to wait for the light to be almost red before you go and everyone else is trying to run the red light in the other direction. Yeah it is quite frightening."

Traffic sequence lights often don't give traffic coming from Liverpool Street East the opportunity to turn right as traffic coming the opposite way turning left have right of way.

Hamilton City Council traffic systems engineer John Kinghorn said the intersection wasn't classed as dangerous and there have been very few incidents at the site.

"It's not uncommon," he said. "It's normal practice to give way to oncoming traffic when you're turning. This is the practice that happens at every priority intersection - you turn through gaps in oncoming traffic. And it's common practice at traffic signals with low volume on the side road."

"The last member of the public that contacted us [about the intersection] was this time last year and we reviewed the intersection and concluded that it would be worthwhile putting right-turning arrows for people turning out of Liverpool Street."

Unfortunately for Liverpool Street East users, those upgrades aren't a priority and will only happen when other work is being carried out on the intersection.

Kinghorn said Waikato Regional Council may be looking at changing bus routes through the intersection later this year so the work could be carried out at the same time.

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