Christchurch roads rate well

Press, 3 September 1986, Page 7

Christchurch roads rate well

Christchurch roads rate as the best he has seen in New Zealand, says a visiting road accident investigator, Mr Mike Goodge.

The main roads were well sign posted and laid out, he said yesterday. Mr Goodge, who leads a road accident investigation unit in Devon, England, is in New Zealand to help with the training of similar road accident units being set up here by the Ministry of Transport. The purpose of the units was to analyse accidents and then “come up with low cost engineering

remedies” to prevent them, he said. The most important aspect of road safety —- whether it be lights, roundabouts, or islands — was that the motorists "knew where they were.” Mr Goodge said that the British experience had been that engineering improvements made to existing roads in the way of clearly posted road signs, better surfacing, or even redesigned roads, would pay for themselves “in a matter of months or a year” because of the money saved in prevent-

ing accidents. Devon’s fatal road accidents had decreased significantly in the last 12 years since the road safety engineering techniques had been applied, combined with education campaigns, said Mr Goodge. Last year, 70 road-re-lated deaths occured in the county, which has a population of a million. This compared with the 700 road deaths in New Zealand last year for a population of three million. In Christchurch yester-

day, Mr Goodge helped lead an accident workshop to give local bodies, the police, members of the Automobile Association, and the Accident Compensation Corporation an insight into the aim of road accident investigation units. The two day workshop will end today. Similar workshops and seminars have been held in other main centres.

A road accident investigation unit with a staff of two has already been set up by the Ministry in Wellington, and a similar one is being set up in Christchurch. By the end of September, staff will be launching studies into road accidents.