Gisborne Herald: Roundabout death a wake-up call

The behaviour of Gisborne drivers at roundabouts was atrocious, district councillor Gary Hope told the assets committee on Wednesday. The committee was discussing recommendations made by Gisborne coroner Alan Hall following the death of young cyclist Khan Craven at the Stanley Road-Childers Road roundabout in June last year. The coroner recommended that the council address the possibility of special cycle lanes, implement a programme of education for both cyclists and motorists, and work with the trucking industry to avoid certain roads during certain times of the day, particularly school opening and closing times.

Acting engineering and works road safety manager Geoff Cobb said the road safety co-ordinator Lenora McDonald would hold talks with the industry. But if the trucks avoided the main intersections they would have to go somewhere else, possibly into a residential area. Many schools were on arterial routes. The co-ordinator was also working on a programme that would see schoolchildren provided with high-visibility vests. It was interesting to read comments from LTNZ senior engineer Colin Goble who said that in smaller roundabouts, research had demonstrated that crash rates were higher where cyclists using separate perimeter paths to motorists had right of way.

Since the construction of the roundabout at Stanley Road in 1998, the overall accident rate had dropped significantly but for cyclists it did not decrease. While the roundabout was, due to site constraints, “tight for large rigs”, it had been designed for the through movement of trucks and semi-trailers. “It is always a balancing act,” said Mr Cobb. “There is no magic solution.” Committee chairman Bill Burdett said the council wanted heavy traffic to use Ormond Road but that had not happened as much as it hoped. Nona Aston said she was concerned to see adult cyclists in Ormond Road coming out of the cycling lane and “slipstreaming” behind logging trucks. Children would imitate this sort of behaviour.

Mr Cobb said they were trying to educate cyclists. There was nothing it could do legally about the practice. Margaret Thorpe said it was the same as joggers liking to run on the road. Gary Hope said there had been reasonable success educating children. It was adults who needed it. “Gisborne drivers are atrocious at roundabouts,” he said. He had watched a young cyclist at a roundabout who twice had to stop for drivers who did not give way to him.

That was what concerned him about roundabouts. This boy had to stop and put his feet down on the ground twice. That sort of driver should have their licence taken off them. He was concerned to see two new roundabouts in the minor works programme for next year.

One was at Grey Street, used by quite a lot of young cyclists. Eastern area roading engineer Dave Hadfield said the new roundabouts would have a similar design to the existing ones, so motorists would be familiar with them. Kathy Sheldrake said it was nearly a year since the cyclist had been killed and the council needed to be working with the trucking industry. Margaret Thorpe said the industry had been shocked by that accident. It was a wake-up call.