Truck driver: This year, my fear of coming across a fatal crash became a tragic reality

Friday, 10 July 2020

The Napier Taupo Rd has seen seven deaths in six months.

OPINION: As a truck driver, one of my biggest fears is coming around the corner and being faced with something I can’t avoid.

Or coming across a crash where there is nothing we can do. I even wrote an opinion piece for Stuff about it in November 2018.

On March 6 of this year, that fear became reality on the Napier-Taupō Rd, just north of Te Haroto, for a handful of truck drivers who travel that road regularly. We were among some of the first on the scene to a fatal collision between Kawaro Roadway and Turangakumu Rd at Te Haroto.

I found out later that the two degrees of separation in New Zealand was certainly true that night; two of the students that my wife looks after in her student representative role were related to the driver.

Antony Alexander, who has been driving trucks and buses on the Napier-Taupo Rd for the past six years.

* Hawke's Bay's twisted road: Seven people dead in six months on the Napier Taupō Road

* People killed in Te Pohue crash named

Toys left at a fatal crash scene on the Napier Taupo Rd.

* 'Enough is enough': Hastings mayor demands answers on Napier–Taupō road crashes

* Woman and two children remain in hospital after crash on Napier-Taupō Road

* Napier-Taupō road partially reopens after serious crash in Te Haroto

* 'Kind and caring' 10-year-old girl killed in Napier-Taupō crash named

* Calls for better cellphone coverage on the Napier-Taupō road

* 'Perfect couple' lost in tragic car accident in Hawke's Bay

* MP asks why no money will be spent on Napier-Taupō road after seven people dead**

What made it sad for me that night was the fact that the person trying to help the deceased thought she was still alive.

With my experience, not only as a truck driver, but the hundreds of fatals I’ve attended in the past through a different career path, I just knew that wasn’t true.

You just don’t survive an impact like that one. Within the following 24 hours, a second crash happened at exactly the same spot, thankfully not resulting in death.

There have been many people affected by that fatal crash. The family of the deceased, the people in the other car, the bystanders, the first responders. Me.

For the last year or so I have spent time talking to NZTA, roading contractors and other professional drivers in regards to the state of the road.

A heat map showing the location of serious crashes on the Napier-Taupo Rd (State Highway 5).

It is absolute garbage in places; patches on patches, undulating surfaces and low grade chip seal that has been worn away to a slippery bare surface that gives absolutely no grip for a car, let alone a truck if something goes wrong.

NZTA seem to be aware of these areas though, as the number of temporary ‘slippery when wet’ signs that have appeared over the last six months is phenomenal.

Four days before the latest fatal crash near Te Pohue, a van had slid off the road at almost the exact same spot and the signs went up not long after. About 15 minutes before that crash, I had traveled through the area and had thought at the time that there was going to be a crash. Little did I know.

As someone who travels this road regularly, I know these spots. But I have to wonder how some people make it home at night, considering the way they drive.

The night before that fatal crash, someone overtook me on a blind corner in the wet.

I activated my camera, sure that I was going to watch them head off into the bushes. They didn’t - how they didn’t was pure luck, I guess. And what was the point? About 2km up the road were passing lanes. Instead, this driver made a decision that would have impacted many lives if it had all gone wrong.

I’ve been trying to get someone from the local NZTA office to come up for a ride for over a year. This is hopefully going to happen within the next couple of weeks.

In June 2019, one of the network managers from one of the two contractors who work on the road took the time to do it. To his credit, a couple of places that were pointed out were either resealed or scrubbed to make the road less slippery.

I pointed out the corner where the fatal crash in March took place as “being lethal in the wet”. Those were my exact words. Prophetic words that absolutely gut me.

Other than some scrubbing, the surface hasn’t changed since that night in June 2019. It’s still lethal.

There has been some work carried out on the Napier-Taupō Rd but a lot of it is, in my opinion, substandard.

In March 2020 NZTA announced that $13 million would be spent upgrading the Taupo arterial route between the State Highway 5 Napier-Taupō Rd intersection with State Highway 1 through to Wairakei. This would make the road safer, they said, as three people had died with six seriously injured between 2010, when the road was initially built, through to September 2017.

They’ll widen the shoulders to give drivers more room to recover if they lose control, install flexible safety barriers down the middle of the road to prevent head-on crashes and roadside safety barriers where hazards can’t be removed such as power poles, trees and deep ditches.

As far as I can see, the only thing that is needed on the arterial route at this point in time are the potholes and pieces of tarmac that are breaking up needing repairs. The Napier-Taupō needs more.

From December 2019 to May 2020, seven people died and countless others were injured after a horror Christmas holiday period.

According to the updated Social Cost of Road Crashes and Injuries report, a fatal crash costs $5,071,600. That’s $35m that could have been spent on the Napier-Taupō Rd to help prevent crashes and make the road more forgiving of human error.

Because, let’s face it, people do make mistakes. At the moment there are multiple spots on this road that do not offer that protection.

Over the next couple of months I intend to explore areas on the Napier-Taupō and campaign to make them safer for every one of the 5000 vehicles per day that travel the road, including the truck drivers who are often the first ones to come across a serious crash.

I still am scared that I may be the next one that is hit, regardless whether it is a mistake or the road that is the cause.

Antony Alexander is a line haul driver and has over 20 years experience with the military and NZ police. He also trained as a crash investigator.