Nelson Weekly Locally Owned and Operated
Wednesday 12 August 2020
Rethinking funerals
Page 15
PAGE 16-17
Teammates turned rivals
Page 25
Our highway protector Lifesaving barrier’s true cost revealed
This median barrier has prevented more than 150 serious incidents from occurring on our State Highway. Photo: Charles Anderson.
Charles Anderson Editor
charles@nelsonweekly.co.nz
The median barrier that stretches along Wakatu Dr on SH6 has potentially saved dozens of lives and millions of dollars as new data reveals the interventions it
has made in preventing head-on collisions in Nelson. The wire rope barrier was installed in 2006, at a cost of about $5 million. Since then, it has been hit an average of 12 times a year, with an average repair cost of $5,000 each time, data released by Waka Kotahi NZ
Transport Agency shows. However, there have only been 10 incidents of serious injury in the time since it was installed. “I think of median barriers as vaccines for roads,” says Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency’s senior road safety manager Fabian Marsh. “Where they exist,
people don’t notice them but when something goes wrong, they can be life or death.” In the last 20 years there has only been one death on the highway, relating to an incident where a crash occurred in the area of where the wire barrier now is. That incident occurred in 2002.
The transport agency says that a death on our roads will cost society about $4.5 million while a serious injury will cost about $500,000. This means that the barrier has long since paid for itself in terms of societal
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