Work started today extending the median barrier east of the Maungatapu Bridge on State Highway 29A.
'The permanent barrier removes the risk of head-on crashes and removing part of the passing lane manages speed around the corner,” says an NZTA spokesperson.
'A temporary measure was put in place last year while drivers got used to the changes.”
The corner is notorious for a series of fatal head on accidents. The passing lane up the hill from the bridge was eventually closed off after a serious crash on the corner on June 25, 2016.
Two people were transported to Tauranga Hospital from that crash with serious injuries and another two people suffered minor injuries.
There have been at least two other deaths on the corner over the last decade.
2 comments
Morons behind the wheel
Posted on 23-01-2017 20:33 | By CC8
The barrier may well help, but change the moronic idiot drivers for a permanent solution. I sometimes wonder if the engineers actually even bother to drive the road a dozen or so times to get a real feel of what is happening before they make kneejerk changes which IMHO in this case have only made the situation worse. The solid barrier all the way to the bridge may work, but I can see some idiot impaling him/herself on the end of it. In my obseration the temporary barrier has just shifted the frustration further east, it's the idiot drivers who do not realise that the open road speed limit started back near Welcome Bay that cause most of the problem, and those that won't give way coming out of the Eastern on ramp from Mangatapu.
I do understand the reason......
Posted on 23-01-2017 22:32 | By groutby
...but wouldn't it seen logical to teach us NOT to drive over double yellows and other simple manouvres?...rather than keep telling us to "slow down" and make excuses for our crap driving?....seriously...the slower you drive the slower you think...the brain's processing speed will deteriorate and we'll end up banging into each other at walking pace at this rate...!!
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