Wind gusts spin car on Remutaka Hill Rd
A woman whose car was spun around by the wind twice on the Remutaka Hill Rd said the State Highway 2 route was too dangerous and should have been closed on Tuesday.
Gusts of up to 135 kmh blasted the summit of the road connecting Upper Hutt and South Wairarapa making for a hairy crossing for many motorists on Tuesday.
Waka Kotahi issued a warning on Tuesday afternoon via Twitter saying it might close the road at short notice due to high winds, but it remained open.
Regional transport systems manager Mark Owen said they were monitoring conditions on the hill, but the wind did not reach their threshold of consistently reaching gust speeds of over 140 kmh over at least a period of half an hour, which would trigger a closure.
Driven On The Akatarawa Rd Lately?
If so, its good to know you are still alive and reading this.
We have a function to go to over Christmas up that way and having heard a few hairy stories about the road, I went up there on Thursday to check it out. The road's ok, narrow and winding, but not much worse than a Wellington hill suburb. What was pretty scary was the behavior of other drivers. Three vehicles heading the other way at speed would have crashed into me if I hadn't been pulled off the road. I had pulled in to check the address when a truck came flying past, taking up all of the narrow road at speed. There is no way the driver would have been able to stop had they come around the corner immediately in front of me. The other two drivers came hurtling past as I had turned in to turn around and come back down the hill. They were also driving at speed and taking up most of the road. Coming back down I passed another car coming up and estimate that the safe speed to pass another car was about 30-35 kms.p.h. So, now we're thinking, do we go to the function or not.? Feels a bit like we're taking our life in our hands going up there. Drivers appear to be overconfident, and they are courting serious injury.
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