Drive Safely and Watch for Road Damage

Floods, snow and falling trees have created havoc on the roads of the Mackenzie District in the last few weeks.

Council roading manager Suzy Ratahi says even on sunny days the risk to road users hasn’t disappeared.

“There are on-going hazards and roads are still suffering from the effects of the weather,” she says. “Don’t drive at high speeds and look out for odd looking patches ahead.”

One of the big hazards is something called “frost heave”. This is when water gets into the underlying structure of the road and creates soft spots that look like porridge. A single road might have more than 50 different soft spots and it’s not possible for the council to put warning signs on all of them.

Mrs Ratahi singles out five roads as bad for soft spots: Lochaber Road, Lilybank Road, Braemar Road, Rollesby Valley Road and Godley Peaks Road. Rocky Valley Road has also been scoured out by rain and is badly damaged with a reduced road width.

“If you are driving along an unsealed road at 80 to 90km an hour and hit one of these spots, you could be in for a bit of strife,” she says. “Some of the worst soft spots will be fixed by the council, while others will slowly disappear as the roads dry out. This could take some time.”

Another hazard is ice. In some places snow is compacted by vehicles driving over it and a cold frost will turn it to ice. Areas that are permanently shaded by trees also become icy in clear, frosty weather.

Mrs Ratahi says this year has seen an unusual combination of weather events leading to more road damage than a normal winter.

First there was flooding, followed by heavy snow which melted quickly in a warm nor’wester and added more water to the ground. This was followed by a wind storm that brought down trees and power lines onto roads across the district. “Our contractors have been really busy this year,” she says.

The council has received an extra $1.18 million in emergency funding from the New Zealand Transport Authority (NZTA) to repair road damage caused by bad weather during the last financial year (to 30 June 2013), and has made a further application for more money in the current year. The majority of the financial burden of repairing the roads is coming from the NZTA which gathers funds from road user charges, license fees and petrol tax.

But safety for road users is the biggest concern. Slow down this winter and scan the road ahead.

ENDS

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