Call to fix dangerous intersection
PENNY Martin shudders as she recalls the day a car smashed through the wall of her hairdressing salon.
"If it had hit the window, rather than the brick wall, it would have been carnage," she said, pointing to the spot where the out of control vehicle flew through the air after being hit by another vehicle on the infamous Dean Street roundabout.
Workers and customers screamed in terror as debris crashed around them.
"The car was less than a metre from one of my stylists," said Penny, owner of Trimendous.
Penny was supporting Division 8 candidate Leyland Barnett's campaign for the roundabout to be removed and replaced with traffic lights as an urgent priority.
"There's a bingle here every week and the black and white chevrons on the roundabout have to be replaced nearly every month because they've been hit," she said.
Leyland, a driving instructor and road safety campaigner, said if he was elected he would lobby for the fast-tracking of an infrastructure project to fix what he said was one of the city's most obvious accident blackspots.
He said the council had approved a plan to replace the small roundabout with lights, but it would be at least three years before the work was done.
"This has been a problem for years because Dean Street is a 60kmh zone and two lanes come down to a single lane at the roundabout.
"Many drivers don't slow down and it's just too small for some trucks and buses to get around comfortably."
He said he feared that the intersection could claim lives in the next three years if the council's priorities were not changed.
SAFETY CONCERNS
- Roundabout is where Dean and High streets meet.
- A plan to replace it with traffic lights has been approved, but the work is not scheduled for at least three years.
- Council candidate Leyland Barnett is lobbying for it to be brought forward as an urgent safety measure.
