Popular street signs damaged, stolen and vandalised

Sunday, 9 June 2019

The Holden Ave street signs don't disappear like they used to.

They're high up, latched firmly on to lamp posts at each end of the short street in Forest Lake, Hamilton and framed in solid metal.

It's the end point in one corner of the slow-burning battle between vandals and authorities.

In Hamilton near Waikato University, the city council has replaced the Fox St plate 10 times in the past three years at $155 a pop.

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* Road sign damage an 'expensive waste of time'**

One of the theft-proof Holden Ave signs in Hamilton.

In Dunedin, Dick, Wright, and Every street signs have all gone walkabout while Waitakere lays claim to what could be NZ's most stolen or damaged street sign – West Coast Rd has been replaced 26 times since 2016.

For local authorities, it makes no difference whether the thieves are motivated by humour, their namesake or a special connection to a place or brand – they just want to put a stop to it.

Putting a metal frame around signs and placing them higher or further away from traffic usually does the trick.

Fox St in Hamilton is the most regular street nameplate that requires replacing.

'Previously it's been signs like Holden Avenue,' said Shaun Peterson, operations manager of Infrastructure Alliance which partners with the Hamilton City Council. 'And it seems to be paying off as the Holden Ave is not the most popular sign anymore.'

The name plates are generally about 2.5 metres high so people can move under them safely.

'We can't have them too far up as people are usually not looking in the air for a street sign, they are normally looking at eye height. We need to put them where drivers can still see them but not be vandalised. So we would look at putting them on a street light instead of a normal pole.'

In Wellington, Moncrieff St in Mount Victoria has been replaced seven times since 2016 at a cost of $484. The total cost of replacing nameplates in the capital was $155,041.

The city council was unable to say whether theft, traffic damage or vandalism was to blame in each Moncrieff theft case, complaint and information assurance Chris Brown said.

'It can be speculated that street name plates are sometimes removed by members of the public when the name on the plate either matches their own name, or that of a friend or can be seen to have humorous connotations.

'Most likely though, the main reason for street signs or nameplates to be damaged, or caused to be removed, is through vehicles coming into contact with the signs or the sign poles. This is particularly the case with the keep left signs which are sometimes contacted by vehicles affected by the road camber at the side of the road,' Brown said.

Local councils are responsible for road signs within their boundaries while the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) looks after those on the highways and motorways.

In the past three years, NZTA has spent about $4,441,216 replacing 21,900 damaged or missing signs.

Crash damage was the most common cause, resulting in 6696 signs needing to be repaired or replaced.

The blue and white keep left arrow signal is one that suffers the most at the hands over motorists.

Peterson said they are generally damaged by trucks and trailers because they are usually at the end of a traffic island marking a hazard.

They can be worry to fix, too, as his staff need to work in the middle of the lanes to install replacements.

Wellington and Hamilton motorists struggle to leave the keep left sign alone.

While there are network inspectors, Peterson encouraged people to notify the council if they do see signs missing, as some of the signs are important for road safety.

The Christchurch City Council does not actively record information on street sign replacements.

Further south in Dunedin the most replaced sign – three times – was a Give Way sign at the intersection of Malvern St and Fulton Rd.

No street nameplate has been replaced more than twice. Those that have been replaced twice are Wright St, Dick St, Every St, Portobello Rd, Otokia-Kuri Bush Rd, McDonald St, and Dalziel Rd.

In the past three years, 555 signs have been reported as vandalised and 1085 signs reported as missing.

It has cost the Dunedin City Council $69,113 in the past three years, including renewal replacements.