Smash at Kelvin Heights turnoff

Traffic was backed up to almost the BP Roundabout corner yesterday after a bad car accident at the Kelvin Heights intersection with State Highway 6 on the Queenstown to Kingston Road just before 4pm.

One person was taken to Lakes District Hospital suffering from moderate injuries with four others treated at the scene for minor injuries, a St John Ambulance spokesperson says. An ambulance, and an operations manager vehicle sent to manage the scene, attended after the call came in at 3.52pm.

This follows community calls for an upgrade at the increasingly busy intersection recently, with the NZ Transport Agency (Waka Kotahi) indicating that traffic lights may be the “best permanent solution”, according to the Kelvin Heights Peninsula Community Association.

Similar concerns have been aired on community social media platforms by Hanley’s Farm residents further south on the State Highway over what some residents claimed to have been near misses.

Both Frankton and Queenstown Volunteer Fire crews attended, applying initial first aid and helping with traffic control, a Fire and Emergency NZ spokesperson says,

Police say inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the crash are “ongoing”. Some of those involved were being supported on the side of the road, a woman wrapped in a blanket.

It’s unclear how the accident occurred at this stage, but the whole right and centre of the front bonnet and engine of a silver 2018 Toyota Rav 4 was completely smashed in. The airbags had fully inflated, and the vehicle was left facing a metre or so from the large rocky overhang adjacent to the intersection. The front right of the 1999 Volkswagen Golf was completely smashed in, dislodging the wheel.

The road had to be closed several times, initially to allow emergency services to clear the highway and then again from just before 5pm, during peak traffic, to allow tow trucks to remove both badly damaged vehicles. The road reopened at about 5.15pm allowing commuter traffic to flow again.

Not only the volume of traffic, but speed and poor sight distances suggest action should be taken at the Kelvin Heights State Highway

turnoff, the Kelvin Peninsula Community Association says in its last newsletter. It’s aired major concerns to the Transport Agency calling for an upgrade, tighter speed restrictions, speed cameras and a roundabout after a “marked increase in the busyness of the intersection” has led members to “challenge the reluctance of NZ Transport Authority Waka Kotahi to upgrade the intersection on the short to medium term”.

NZTA has told the association that it’s aware of the increasing traffic demand and related safety issues and has “a watching brief on the Southern Corridor due to rapid growth in residential development”.