As the Selwyn District’s snowy paddocks and blue skies began to blur, Grant Williams felt his seatbelt tighten against his chest and waist. He couldn’t comprehend what was going on. The rear of his car had been struck by a vehicle that had failed to stop on a crossroad in rural Canterbury.
“All I remember is my wife yelling ‘he’s not going to stop!’” Grant says.
His wife, in the passenger seat, was talking about the driver of a Mitsubishi that blasted through stop signs where Leaches Road meets State Highway 77.
The vehicle punched into the driver’s-side passenger door, sending Grant and his wife spinning across the chipseal. Astonishingly, no one was hurt. Grant believes someone could have been killed if the timing had been different.
“All the power poles and posts along that road… I don’t know how we didn’t hit one, or flip.”
A volunteer firefighter of 46 years, the Springfield Fire Chief has attended his share of crashes. He says crossroads are a common site for such events.
There are about 1,800 rural crossroads around New Zealand.
Crashes like Grant’s are unfortunately regular occurrences in rural areas, and this is why the AA Research Foundation recently commissioned work investigating low-cost options to improve crossroad intersections.
It found a third of accidents occurred when a yielding driver (one meant to stop or give way) did not detect an oncoming intersection. Some simple, low-cost changes could mean drivers would be made aware of an intersection much sooner.
AA road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen says the study, undertaken by Mackie Research, aimed at getting a better grasp on how and why there were failures to detect oncoming rural crossroads, and what could be done to better alert drivers.
Rural crossroads are often located in areas that feature roading and environmental characteristics that promote certain driver behaviours or decisions which could lead to a crash.
Many rural roads are high speed areas with long, straight sections and light traffic. Visibility of upcoming intersections and bisecting roads is often poor, and signage and markings can be minimal. They also commonly feature rows of trees or poles that draw the eye through intersections.
The first part of the research looked at 40 fatal and serious crashes at rural crossroads to identify common characteristics in the roading environment. A second component looked at what low-cost safety features might reduce the chances of a crash using a virtual simulation test.
Sixty test participants viewed video footage of real rural roads in New Zealand, each with three levels of warning infrastructure known as ‘treatments.’ One video featured the standard treatment used at rural crossroads consisting of a stop sign on the lefthand side of the road where the two roads meet. The other two had additional treatments featuring larger stop signs on both sides of the road and ‘STOP’ painted on the road at the intersection. They also each had another set of signage further back from the crossroad, while one of these had a further treatment – raised tactile lines and ‘STOP AHEAD’ painted on the approach to the intersection.
The participants were asked to press a button when they recognised that they needed to stop or give way ahead.
On average, participants realised there was an upcoming intersection and that they needed to stop 160 metres earlier when there were warning interventions on the approach to the crossroads.
“This research will hopefully help give roading authorities more confidence that simple changes can make a real difference. This will ultimately lead to less crashes where a driver has disastrously not seen that they are approaching an intersection until it’s too late,” Dylan says.
Many rural crossroads are known blackspots with environmental features and insufficient safety infrastructure that mean drivers regularly make the same mistakes. Dylan says this AA Research Foundation study demonstrates how low-cost safety interventions can markedly improve a driver’s awareness of an oncoming intersection and lead to less people suffering crashes like the one Grant Williams and his wife luckily survived.
The research is an excellent resource for road controlling authorities looking for possible solutions to reduce the number of crashes and improve safety at rural crossroads, Dylan says.
What do you think? Have you had a near miss at a rural crossroad?
Share your thoughts in a letter to the editor.
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