21 January 2015 | NZ Transport Agency - Waikato & Bay of Plenty

New road safety initiative rolls out in eastern Bay of Plenty this week

A NZ Transport Agency safety initiative aimed at reducing the crash rate on a stretch of State Highway 30 (SH30) between Rotorua and Whakatane will be rolled out this week.

Wide centre line markings will be painted on sections of SH30 west of Te Teko this week following reseal work in the area.

Motorists will notice the new wide centre lines, which will incorporate two painted lines approximately 0.8 metres apart to provide greater separation between each lane of the road.

Like a regular centre line, the markings will be painted as a series of dashed white lines on sections of the highway where overtaking is allowed and as solid yellow lines in no overtaking areas.

The Transport Agency’s Bay of Plenty highway manager Niclas Johansson says the new wide centre line will help separate vehicles and reduce the risk of crashes,increasing safety on the stretch of road.

“Since 2009 there has been 15 crashes on this stretch of SH30. Of these, five crashes involved vehicles that had crossed the centreline,” he says.

“The extra space in the middle of the road created by the wide centre lines gives motorists more time to react and recover if they make a mistake.”

The markings have been successfully trialled at 15 sites around New Zealand as part of Safer Journeys – the government’s road safety strategy which aims to reduce deaths and injuries by creating a road system that is forgiving of human error so that mistakes don’t cost lives or limbs.

Mr Johansson says the Transport Agency has studied the trial sites for three years and data indicated that installing wide centreline reduces injury head-on crashes by 66% and all crashes by 21%.

“Historically there have been a number of these types of crashes on this stretch of SH30,” he says.

“The expectation is that this initiative will help to improve safety in the future.”

ENDS

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