Council blames speed yet again where road condition obviously at fault

[motorbyclist]

16 feb - yet another serious accident
(http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10556894)
22 feb - driver dies (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10558045)

Now I live on this road, and the corner in question is a few hundred metres away from my driveway.

for YEARS cars have been regularly coming off the roads in this area. some even crashing on the straight bits.

for YEARS the road has had a habit of having the edges slip away, or the road splitting open and water rising through the cracks

finally, early february, a crack opened on the inside of this corner, bringing with it water and silt. i blamed poor driving in wet weather, until i very nearly crashed my car myself in the DRY. there were weekly crashes where people hit the slippery stuff, spin, hit the inside of the corner and roll down the hill.

the council put up the 30kph temporary "slippery" signs - which do fuck all cause they leave them everywhere anyway.

after Ms Kirby (teacher from my old high school) crashed they put up a big flashing sign. this actually began to slow traffic.

now, to "fix" the road, these retards decided to address the tar bleed, not the fucking leak in the middle of the road. sure enough they rough up the surface, do a bad job of it too so now the corner is bumpy rather than flat, paint new lines and proclaim it to be fixed, leaving the slippery signs out to further desensitise the public.

meanwhile the crack continues to leak - albeit slowly, but it's still there.


Now, this is a corner that i can say with much experience can be managed at over 100kph in the dry, and 80kph in the wet, BEFORE they dealt with the tar bleed, BEFORE the crack opened up

I can also say, having spoken with most those who crash into my fence, all but ONE crash has been speed related, and that ONE crash he was doing in excess of 140kph and lost control on the straight bit. the rest are either driver inattention, driver incompentence, or poor surface combined with driver inattention and/or incompetence.
There will be other accidents cause by speeding, but those were speeding - not justification to lower the limit if people are crashing due to speed above the posted limit

But, yet again, SPEED is found to be the main contributing factor, and knocking 50kph is somehow going to solve this.

This just pisses me right off. the limit used to be open road, then they knocked it to 70. they NEVER had any sign telling people to do the corner at less than 100, despite the next one (a faster one at that) having a big yellow <<<45 on it

NOW all of a sudden it's speed that's a problem, not the fact that the road annually opens up and until now all they do is fill the crack with tar snakes. the fact that they just put more seal to fill in the sinking road.

The roads in this area are very busy, and in appalling conditon. they refuse to do anything to seriously combat traffic in the suburbs, infact the council has effectively made it worse, and they refuse to fix the detours people take to avoid the traffic until there is a death.

A few months ago i sent a complaint asking for road repairs, and a scathing remark on how deaths seem to be the only way to get things fixed, and asked who is responsible if another person dies on a road they've been warned about to fix. they said they have already spent their load on road repairs, and ignored the rest.

A classic example would be the couple that died a few year back hitting a power pole. they exit a corner to find the road dips away (big sinkhole that throws me from he seat of my bike), and promptly lost control, hitting a power pole. the sinkhole was immediately repaired. the sinkhole has returned, and was in my complaint. the sinkhole is still there, getting worse.

the only repairs in the area recently have been roughing up that one corner, patching only a select few of the sunken/slipping edges, and extensive planting of flowers on roundabouts

Frankly, I've had enough of this BS. Waitakere City Council, get your fucking ass into gear and address the problem - stop falsely blaming speed.

furthermore, there are no footpaths on Candia rd, and in spite of this people insist on jogging/cycling/horse riding along it, leaving horse shit behind for us bikers to avoid. frankly this is unacceptable. install footpaths or stop the pedestrians.

It is a 70Kph zone, a good way to bypass the conjested suburbs, and that it should stay.

Photos to come.

[BOGAR]

Send this to the papers and you might see the road being fixed within your lifetime. :soon:Otherwise keep sending letters to anyone and every one you can think of until it gets fixed.

[Swoop]

West Auckland... how surprising.

I have phoned the council and complained about the state of road repairs out here. When they re-seal an area, the temp speed signs are left up for a few days (not even a week) and then they disappear without sweeping the road.
Great for bikers and lycra-loons, cyclists, etc. Not!
If they cannot even do something simple like that, what hope is there for the Candia Rd corner?

[Mully]

Candia road is a bloody mess. Simpson Road (I think) is just as bad, but ruts and the edge of the road falling away.

Still, as long as Bob Harvey has his magnificent new council chamber/ediface to himself, the world is good.

[R6_kid]

Is that the big fuck off 'shift' in the road just up from your house? I remember going WHAT THE FUCK! as we drove over the top of the hill. The height difference in the road was about the same as, or bigger than a decent speed bump, except that it runs with the road not perpindicular.

[motorbyclist]

photos to come when the traffic dies down a bit


Candia road is a bloody mess. Simpson Road (I think) is just as bad, but ruts and the edge of the road falling away.

Still, as long as Bob Harvey has his magnificent new council chamber/ediface to himself, the world is good.

simpson road has had it's own fair share of accidents - it's one of, if not THE worst road I have ever seen.

that new building is such an outrage - a triumph over common sense is the nicest thing to be said about it


Is that the big fuck off 'shift' in the road just up from your house? I remember going WHAT THE FUCK! as we drove over the top of the hill. The height difference in the road was about the same as, or bigger than a decent speed bump, except that it runs with the road not perpindicular.

no but there's heaps around - simpson road is especially appalling

[Dave Lobster]

When all the councils get merged into one big one, there'll be heaps of money saved in wages paid out to council workers. No point having four people doing one person's job..
All this money saved will either be given back to the taxpayers, or ploughed back into the infrastructure like roads and pavements.


:rolleyes:

[motorbyclist]

right, well i took those photos on friday night and will organise them and put them into a more coherent thread, probably this weekend

in the meantime, the first four pics are of simpson rd - there was a crash here just this morning

there was also another Candia Rd crash on sunday

the last two are of water/silt leaking up through candia road. the last pic is the leak that killed Ms Kirby, after the road was "repaired", and is one of many that still remain, some with visible cracks in the "repaired" road surface

[ital916]

I remember how fun that road was when we were riding along it at night in that thunderstorm :shit:

[Nasty]

All well and good putting it here ... what are you going to do about it .. cos I don't think they read this site.

[DEATH_INC.]

When all the councils get merged into one big one, there'll be heaps of money saved in wages paid out to council workers. No point having four people doing one person's job..
All this money saved will either be given back to the taxpayers, or ploughed back into the infrastructure like roads and pavements.


:rolleyes:

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

Yep..........

[motorbyclist]

All well and good putting it here ... what are you going to do about it .. cos I don't think they read this site.

they don't seem to care about emails either


suppose i could cut it down enough to send into the paper?

[Nasty]

they don't seem to care about emails either


suppose i could cut it down enough to send into the paper?

Now you are getting the picture ... councils hate bad press ... and they with bad press they need to do something to counter it.

[MSTRS]

Pic 3...farking 'ell. The people responsible for that need shooting. Twice.
Get some immediate publicity going on that. It's nothing less than criminal negligence.

[merv]

So the road just sitting there is at fault, what ever happened to driver judgement? What if this had been a gravel road which guys like me and Motu love?

Eyes and brain power come into this - drive (or ride for bikers) to what you see. if you can't see far enough ahead, slow down until you are comfortable with it.

I will rue the day all motorcycle enjoyable roads will be so straight, smooth and boring I will lose interest in the past-time. OK, OK some will bleat on at me but this is a poorly maintained road, but no road gets like that over night and locals should know the road and foreigners should drive according to what they see first time. No excuses excepted as far as I am concerned.

[popelli]

So the road just sitting there is at fault, what ever happened to driver judgement? What if this had been a gravel road which guys like me and Motu love?

Eyes and brain power come into this - drive (or ride for bikers) to what you see. if you can't see far enough ahead, slow down until you are comfortable with it.

I will rue the day all motorcycle enjoyable roads will be so straight, smooth and boring I will lose interest in the past-time. OK, OK some will bleat on at me but this is a poorly maintained road, but no road gets like that over night and locals should know the road and foreigners should drive according to what they see first time. No excuses excepted as far as I am concerned.

agree with all of the above

for every 1 person who has an accident there are 100's who don't

you can blame the road, you can blame the council, you can blame the poorly maintained vehicle you were driving but isn't it about time that people involved in accidents took repsonsibility for driving beyond their abilities

[The Pastor]

it dosent even cost that much.

strip it back to subgrade - inspect and repair

wack 150 gap65 and then 100 ap40 then 35mm hotmix on top.

sorted. I should be a roading engineer.

[HungusMaximist]

So the road just sitting there is at fault, what ever happened to driver judgement? What if this had been a gravel road which guys like me and Motu love?

Eyes and brain power come into this - drive (or ride for bikers) to what you see. if you can't see far enough ahead, slow down until you are comfortable with it.

I will rue the day all motorcycle enjoyable roads will be so straight, smooth and boring I will lose interest in the past-time. OK, OK some will bleat on at me but this is a poorly maintained road, but no road gets like that over night and locals should know the road and foreigners should drive according to what they see first time. No excuses excepted as far as I am concerned.

We're talking about car drivers mate, and no matter how many times you guys blat on KB about common sense and shit like that it ant gonna change a thing.

People are people and they're consistently gonna be stupid. If the majority of the car drivers have an ounce of what motorcyclists have a deal with, I'd be fucken grateful.

Waitak council fix the funking road mate! And Andrew, do us all a favour and send the stuff you wrote here to the council or at least the papers.

You'll be surprised at the results!

[motorbyclist]

So the road just sitting there is at fault, what ever happened to driver judgement? What if this had been a gravel road which guys like me and Motu love?

Eyes and brain power come into this - drive (or ride for bikers) to what you see. if you can't see far enough ahead, slow down until you are comfortable with it.


first off, i do agree with you on principle, but this case is a bit of an exception in a few regards;
it is a BUSY road, not some track out in the wops.
we pay for roads to be up to a reasonably safe standard. this road is unacceptably sub-par.
the council had failed to recognise (or will not admit) the true cause of this death.

infact, i had always assumed the sudden increase in crashes was just to a sudden decrease in driver competence (new subdivision just went in)

but it would appear that in the wet, which is when this death occurred, you couldn't see the road leak,right at it's most dangerous.

the simple fact is that we can't possibly be expected to maintain 30kph around every corner** - which was the only safe speed to approach this corner in it's old state; a sudden drop from the 70 that drivers were used to doing in teh wet.

**which in auckland is a VERY effective way to be rear ended

i see today they put up a sign saying 45. good. it still doesn't excuse them for failing to keep busy roads up to a safe standard.

[motorbyclist]

it dosent even cost that much.

strip it back to subgrade - inspect and repair

wack 150 gap65 and then 100 ap40 then 35mm hotmix on top.

sorted. I should be a roading engineer.

now, this really needs the rest of the photos to explain, but most of the issues are just those of poor drainage, causing the clay underneath to become waterlogged.

we get springs in the middle of our roads. half the intersection of candia and sturges slipped off the hill last year. it's yet to be fixed since they drained it and surrounded it with orange hirepool barriers... they also put in some very permanent looking "temporary" signs

[Tone165]

So the road just sitting there is at fault, what ever happened to driver judgement? What if this had been a gravel road which guys like me and Motu love?

Eyes and brain power come into this - drive (or ride for bikers) to what you see. if you can't see far enough ahead, slow down until you are comfortable with it.

I will rue the day all motorcycle enjoyable roads will be so straight, smooth and boring I will lose interest in the past-time. OK, OK some will bleat on at me but this is a poorly maintained road, but no road gets like that over night and locals should know the road and foreigners should drive according to what they see first time. No excuses excepted as far as I am concerned.


Dont you think it is reasonable to expect that a road should at least be in safe condition to start with?

Ok..it rains, oil gets spilled, mud, gravel, cow shite, drunks, tyre debris...all normal hazards, and conditions that have to be allowed for.

I still say that you have a right to expect a certain standard!

[mozzee]

I live out these ways too...the roads are getting worse week by week.

If you turn onto Simpson Road from Candia the road is even worse. Not only are there huge cracks and drops in the road (worse then the pictures shown above), but they are in a corner! This is a 70km/h area, and the corner doesn't have any speed advisory signs. There are no street lights - so almost impossible to see the condition of the road. I would hate to think that somebody on a bike would approach this corner and not be aware of what lay ahead...and that’s not even considering what would happen if the weather was wet. There is atleast a 25cm slip in the tar seal - hitting this on a bike wouldn't be pretty. These cracks cover the whole left hand side of the road, so the only way to avoid it would be to go on the wrong side of the road, which is impossible when turning into a left hand bend.

I totally agree about the pathetic road signage on Candia Road. I think the worst is when you’re heading down towards Henderson Valley. There are a couple 45km/h corners. The first you can easily do at twice that speed. So you casually cruise into the second corner - and suddenly it tightens. Shouldn't these corners be the same?

I'm not sure why we continue to pay increased rates when the work being done in the area is pathetic. I won't even begin to discuss the dramas of Forest Hill Road for the last few years...(a slip that took years to fix and then traffic lights and speed bumps for months...pffft!!!!!) - BUT they have got a beautiful new roundabout and flower beds at the bottom of the street now.

Oh oh and before I forget (while I'm venting) there is a solar speed monitor thingy down the bottom of Forest Hill Road, before Holdens Road, in the 70km/h area. This is about 50-100m before the speed sign showing 50km/h....BUT...if you are going over 50km/h it tells you to "slow down" - why? It's a 70km/h zone? And...to make matters even worse - the solar panel on top of this pole has been stolen about 5-6 times and it keeps getting replaced! What a waste of money? These can't be cheap. This solar panel speed signy thing has absolutely no purpose; it's not even in the correct speed zone?!

Oh and one more thing (still venting) - why are the lights in the stairwell always on in the Waitakere Council building? Even at 2am? 24 hours a day the lights are on. There's no staff working. Yet there are atleast 50 bulbs on in the building. Why do we spend money on this?

Oh and just one more (last thing I promise)... you know those new traffic light things they've put on all the motorway on ramps... why are they always on even when they're not being used. The sign is lit up saying "Ramp Signal Off” – well duh – don’t you think we’d figure that out when we got to the lights and they weren’t switching to red? And because there’s no queue of cars lined up trying to get on the motorway? We have this sign lit up for nearly 22 hours a day just to advise that the ramp signals aren’t being used? So much for ‘clean green’ NZ – What a joke!

It seems to be a never ending problem in this country. They never fix anything properly before they start on the next project. And by the time they finish that one the crappy job they did last time is once again due for repair!!!!

[samgab]

...Oh oh and before I forget (while I'm venting)...
...Oh and one more thing (still venting)...
...Oh and just one more (last thing I promise)...What a joke!...

So much anger! I think you're about to pop. :angry2: :whistle:

[peasea]

We're talking about car drivers mate, and no matter how many times you guys blat on KB about common sense and shit like that it ant gonna change a thing.

People are people and they're consistently gonna be stupid. If the majority of the car drivers have an ounce of what motorcyclists have a deal with, I'd be fucken grateful.

Waitak council fix the funking road mate! And Andrew, do us all a favour and send the stuff you wrote here to the council or at least the papers.

You'll be surprised at the results!

You're right. Send copies to local council, regional council, local papers, The Herald, the Minister of Transport, the LTSA (or whatever they call themselves these days) TVNZ/TV3 and don't forget your MP. Squeaky wheels sometimes DO get the oil. While having a rant on kb is all fine and dandy it won't get you very far in the real world.

Get tapping, fire off the copies and keep us posted.

Good luck, and don't forget; your efforts might save a life...

[merv]

I think you were all getting my point but I do see a lot of blame someone else here and all the comments seem to be talking about regular users of the roads and concerns about signage blah blah blah, so should such people have endorsed licences that don't allow them to use roads they do not have route knowledge on? How could they possibly cope with driving way out onto back country roads they've never seen if they can't handle their regular route?

Sure I agree that we should get good roads through paying rates etc but that surely is more about service provision, but safety has to come back to the individuals judgement or soon we'll all be like Yanks, if their aint a warning sign written in the car about it or on the road or on a bike's petrol tank we better be suing someone for the error they made us make.

How many on this forum have gone on about the nanny state under Labour? Well blaming others always leads to more rules to penalise the many for the sake of the few, so you'll get your speed limits lowered and more yellow lines painted and more passing lanes closed on you because finding more money to make all the roads "safer" won't happen over night.

[MSTRS]

....more rules to penalise the many for the sake of the few, so you'll get your speed limits lowered and more yellow lines painted and more passing lanes closed on you because finding more money to make all the roads "safer" won't happen over night.

Noooo. All we ask for is for UNsafe roads to be made safe(r). The road(s) this thread refers to is/are an absolute disgrace, have gone beyond dangerous, and make a mockery of all the supposed initiatives like straightening corners, yellow lines, reduced speed limits etc.

[merv]

Well if that road is UNsafe then these must be almost unmentionable http://pro.corbis.com/images/IH174370.jpg?size=67&uid=%7B9D85CD6D-2224-4611-BC5C-75531C1B8A5D%7D http://www.temple.edu/bioanthro/images/Chuck_Weitz/IMG004.jpg how could those people even use those roads with all those ruts?

Maybe that's another solution, the council could go rip the seal off and grade the road to make it "safer". The level of service would drop of course.

[MSTRS]

I guess one could always only use this threads road/s if one was driving a vehicle built to deal with them?
Unfortunately, the 'average' modern car or bike falls outside this category and our roads are (or should be) engineered and finished with that in mind.

[merv]

Yep the poor woman that died was driving a Daihatsu Terios, they're 4x4 aren't they? - so just not built to deal with a slightly rutted road at all.

[MSTRS]

No, they're not. Too tall, too narrow. Built for poser value only.

[motorbyclist]

just to clear any confusion, this is not some back country road. Candia road sees over 5000 vehicles per day, ranging from work commutes, school runs, heavy traffic, and a fair amount of "recreational" users

ironically, i've seen more trucks crash on Candia than hoons (well those hoons with flash cars, and assuming the truck drivers weren't hoons ;))

heck, many years ago a flatbed truck rolled on sturges rd right before the intersection with candia - it was carrying a rather large digger.



Oh and one more thing (still venting) - why are the lights in the stairwell always on in the Waitakere Council building? !

don't even get me started on that new building they so desperately needed to build


Yep the poor woman that died was driving a Daihatsu Terios, they're 4x4 aren't they? - so just not built to deal with a slightly rutted road at all.

one of the first vehicles to hit the slippery spot and crash was infact a large 4x4. they all had the same pattern where they hit the inside of the corner and roll

[Dare]

just to clear any confusion, this is not some back country road. Candia road sees over 5000 vehicles per day, ranging from work commutes, school runs, heavy traffic, and a fair amount of "recreational" users
The sad thing is the money is being spent, a couple months ago I came home to find my road (off hadfield on the shore) being resealed... The thing is there was NOTHING WRONG WITH IT, the same job has been done a couple of times since I lived here and the road has been fine the entire time. Granted I did have a minor crash into a tree that is in the middle of the road but that was a problem that existed between my brain and my minis limits in the wet (and zero experience/knowledge of lift off oversteer, something gravel has taught well since). Yet the bottom of Onewa has some pretty severe ripples coming up to the lights that have been there for years. None of that is nearly as bad as what you are dealing with but there seems to be some very wierd bureaucracy going on here. Who is in charge? Where do they have coffee? Can we pay a 'visit'?

[Real_Wolf]

The sad thing is the money is being spent, a couple months ago I came home to find my road (off hadfield on the shore) being resealed... The thing is there was NOTHING WRONG WITH IT, the same job has been done a couple of times since I lived here and the road has been fine the entire time. Granted I did have a minor crash into a tree that is in the middle of the road but that was a problem that existed between my brain and my minis limits in the wet (and zero experience/knowledge of lift off oversteer, something gravel has taught well since). Yet the bottom of Onewa has some pretty severe ripples coming up to the lights that have been there for years. None of that is nearly as bad as what you are dealing with but there seems to be some very wierd bureaucracy going on here. Who is in charge? Where do they have coffee? Can we pay a 'visit'?

Necro much.

I'm curious if you've done anything bout this there motorbicyclist, and what sort of condition its in now.

But yeah, as Dare says, we get road construction over here on the shore quite often, but its not always in places that need it... Going along onewa, just before the lights and just after, its like riding over speed bumps, if you do it at a straight 60km/h you sometimse lift off your seat slightly, and when you stop at the lights in lefthand lane, right foot down, thats fine. Left foot down, straining, its about 10cm or more below your right

[Motu]

just to clear any confusion, this is not some back country road. Candia road sees over 5000 vehicles per day, ranging from work commutes, school runs, heavy traffic, and a fair amount of "recreational" users


But it was a back country road - I used to love Candia Rd in the '70's,up or down.Trouble is lot of these rural roads get run over with subdivisions and become a commuter route...also there are a lot more houses on the Candia Rd hill.It was never made or intended for that level of traffic....same as the Harbour Bridge.It was just a tarsealed gravel road - to make it anything else is going to take major reconstruction.

[The Pastor]

Yeah, the road work contractors do lots of that type of thing, just to make up money so they can claim more next year.

[Tink]

I live in Franklin and I can say the roads are not to shit hot out here, and often you see more than one worker doing nothing... but that road back in february is disgusting, and if it was a gravel road sealed, and the traffic load is high, and so many accidents.. surely the council HAVE TO fix it, and do it properly, not some half hearted crack at it... my road was recently resealed because of it being a school road... 100's of cars and 6 large busses, they literally dug quite a way down to get that seal done properly, and now I ride my bike on it and feel pretty good about the re-seal... that was 6 mths ago.

Like someone here quoted "put it to the press etc"

[ready4whatever]

I live on a little road called Braemar road and years ago half of it slipped into the river next to it. The road cones are still there and nothing is fixed yet FFS. Bloody council aye, they take our rates to repair stuff like this then dont

[motorbyclist]

I'm curious if you've done anything bout this there motorbicyclist, and what sort of condition its in now.

nothing, uni started and other things came up.

road improvements since then:

fresh paint.

red cats eyes on the "drive down a steep bank" side of the road.

mid-winter they put a patch of fresh chipseal on some sunken tar bleed.

within two days the fresh chip seal had bled out into a polished slick tar surface.

shortly thereafter it was re-repaired with tar that doesn't melt below 15 degrees.

they then put some hotmix in the cracks in simpson road. It's still a nightmare to navigate, even in a car, and we can expect the road to be back the way it was in 6 or so months.

all the "45" corner signs are now twice the size of standard signs, just in case people didn't notice them before.....

OH, and they put out those temporary orange "slippery when wet" signs on that lethal corner whenever the weather turns bad.