Napier roadworks crash leaves 1 person seriously injured

The works started in January and include the restriction of up to 300 metres of the Alpers Terrace-Hyderabad Rd sector of Taradale Rd (State Highway 51) to just the eastbound lane.

A resident told Hawke’s Bay Today he heard the cars skidding and hitting the fence.

One of the two cars that crashed into excavations at roadworks on State Highway 1 Taradale Rd, Napier, on Monday night. The digger was used to remove the car.

He went outside and called emergency services.

It appeared occupants were out of the vehicles “but everyone was screaming”, he said.

One vehicle had nosed into the excavation, possibly glancing a digger bucket on the way.

The Herrick St-Taradale Rd culvert works site the morning after Monday night’s incident in which two cars left the restricted lane on Taradale Rd and crashed through the fencing. Photo / Doug Laing

“The [other] one was right on the edge ready to fall,” he said.

He said there was “drizzle” at the time and he often hears skidding as vehicles hit and accelerate out of a dip in the road at the roadworks.

Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter based in Napier, born into a lifestyle of journalism and this week marks 53 years in the newspaper and media industry, in Wairarapa, Wellington and Hawke’s Bay.