Police, fire called to Cape
Emergency services say a young driver is lucky to be alive after their car flipped end on end into a culvert on the south coast. Police and Fire and Emergency responded to the single-vehicle crash on Cape Palliser Rd at 8.30pm on Monday. Emergency personnel said the vehicle left the road just before the Pinnacles Walk and described the uninjured driver as “bloody lucky”. The crash was the second emergency in Cape Palliser that day. Emergency services, including the Life Flight helicopter, responded to a medical event on the coast shortly before 1pm. One patient was taken to Wellington Hospital.
New covid death
Wairarapa has recorded another covid death, bringing the region’s total to 48. Wairarapa reported 123 new cases last week, 18 more than the previous week. There were no cases reported in Wairarapa Hospital as of yesterday. Nationally, covid cases were trending down, with 8882 new cases last week, compared to 10,589 the week before. There were 26 covid-related deaths recorded in New Zealand last week, with 161 people in hospital as of Sunday, seven in intensive care.
Nats hit the road
The National Party’s transport spokesperson Simeon Brown is speaking this morning at Business Wairarapa’s breakfast alongside Nick Leggett from Transporting New Zealand about the region’s speed reductions. He told the Times-Age he would be discussing the changes and other Waka Kotahi NZTA proposals. “National opposes blanket speed limit reductions on our state highway network, we want to make sure people can get around our country efficiently and safely. This government is simply trying to slow people down rather than making sure our roads are built and maintained to the standard needed.” Brown referred to the speed reductions as the “road to zero maintenance”, and said the money used to implement speedbumps should be used to fix potholes instead.
Collection later
Urban rubbish and recycling collections in South Wairarapa will be a day later than usual this week due to Monday’s holiday. Greytown will be collected today, Martinborough tomorrow, and Featherston on Friday.
It strikes me as ludicrous that we are restricted to 80 kph on State Highway 2 but are allowed to do 100 Kph on most of the side roads .
At least we can tow our trailers on State Highway 2 at the same speed as everyone else .