Rain or shine, State Highway 2 residents are ready to protest once again for their right to turn into the side roads.

Median barriers are being installed as part of the SH2 Waihī to Ōmokoroa safety improvements project for the NZ Transport Agency.

A spokesperson for the roading agency says the aim of the barriers is to prevent head-on crashes, save lives and prevent serious, life-long debilitating injuries.

“We acknowledge these barriers can make life a little bit more challenging for some road users, however we believe the risk of not making it home altogether is much worse,” says NZTA in a statement provided to SunLive.

“Research shows where they are installed, median barriers typically reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured in crashes by 75 per cent.”

Despite this, residents opposed to the barriers are planning to protest on SH2 on Tuesday, July 16.

From 8am they will protest along Sharp Rd and the SH2 intersection no matter the weather, they say via a group chat on Facebook.

“This will be quite a big event, so please come along and show how you feel and think about the proposed median barriers,” says the road representative in the email they sent out to all side road residents.

“Tell your family, neighbours and friends.”

Residents have also been in contact with Coromandel MP Scott Simpson in the hope he can help with their plight.

In response to an email from Lisa Anderton, Simpson says he simply does not “understand NZTA’s decision to proceed”.

“They are the decision maker, so it is NZTA we have to convince.”

Lund Rd resident Gino de Graaf and former Western Bay of Plenty District councillor and Work Rd resident Mike Williams spoke on Breakfast with Paul Brennan on Reality Check Radio to talk about the installation of median barriers on SH2, and how the inability to make right turns is likely to cause havoc for local road users.

“We’re not opposed to a centre barrier – we have been, for years, asking NZTA to be sensible and allow right-hand turns into the side roads that they are cutting off,” says Mike. “We have at least eight side roads that will be closed, and those roads will have near on 1000 households on them.

“The argument that NZTA have pitched is that we must have no gaps to save lives. But in reality, the gaps have very little affect on the outcome of saving lives,” says Mike, in his opinion.

The NZTA spokesperson says: “To achieve the greatest safety benefit – there needs to be as few gaps between the median barriers as possible. However, to ensure the road remains fit for purpose for residents we have given careful consideration to the placement of turnaround bays, ensuring the distance between them is reasonable and enables the community to remain connected.”

“This road SH2 has had more than $100 million spent on it in the past four years where every intersection has been improved in right in and right out and they’ve been widened and the speed limit has been dropped to 80km an hour,” says Gino.

“NZTA have constantly painted us as being pained by inconvenience when inconvenience is not the main factor in the equation. They’ve painted us as spoilt brats that don’t want to travel further but really, it’s fundamentally a disconnect and a huge amount of arrogance displayed by the entity NZTA to not compromise.

“Boy, have we tried the last two or three years to get any kind of compromise or shifting in thinking and there’s been none.

“We’ve tried the official line and we’ve been trying to get some reasoning but now we’re protesting and we’re putting signs up. We’re constantly working to get information and get other people on board to help us with this. So, it’s kind of come out of our hands now, we the local people are going to act out in the legal fashion to make themselves be heard,” says Mike.

“We’ve approached politicians; our local politician has been quite helpful in trying to get some common sense, but I have approached Simeon Brown on several occasions, I’ve had one automatic reply but nothing else,” says Gino.

“I have tried to arrange a meeting with him and Simon Bridges who’s the chairman of NZTA but to try and get an audience with those guys is absolutely impossible it seems at the moment, and we just don’t know what our next moves are, except for people taking action into their own hands and being disruptive.”

For more information, visit the ‘Flexible road safety barriers’ page on the NZTA website: www.nzta.govt.nz/roads-and-rail/road-engineering/road-safety-interventions/flexible-road-safety-barriers.