Resident calls for action on driving

A Queenstown woman made an impassioned plea to the Queenstown Lakes District Council yesterday to do all it could to address dangerous driving in the district.

Kelly Turner spoke during yesterday's public forum and told councillors the issues were far greater than overseas drivers.

''I just can't believe what I see every day on the roads ... I feel like there are no road rules in Queenstown at the moment.

''I worry about my parents, I worry about my brother and sister and their families ... is today the day they're going to be unlucky on our roads?

''It's the everyday residents that worry about this, not just the people who use 'tourists' like a dirty word.''

Ms Turner posted a message on the council's Facebook page on Saturday afternoon, asking the council to look at the way people were acting on the roads.

''Just ask yourself, how safe do you feel with your kids in the car at the moment?'' the message said.

A council staff member responded, informing her it was a ''national issue'' and the only aspect the council could determine related to local roads and ''making them safer to drive on''.

''QLDC has no powers to change how people behave.

''That responsibility sits with the Government, through the driver licensing system, and the police.''

The council staff member then referred Ms Turner to its draft strategy for transport relating to the Queenstown CBD: ''Part of it relates to how we can encourage more people to walk and cycle.''

At yesterday's meeting, Ms Turner said people were either driving ''with fear or aggression'', neither of which were safe.

While she recognised the council had acknowledged it was a ''real worry'' for residents, she believed much of the focus on the issue of tourist drivers to date had been around ''what we can't do''.

''We hear all the time about life jackets; drinking in Queenstown.

''We don't have community messaging around safe driving, unless it's negative.

''Please continue to channel the community's feelings in a way that's positive,'' she said.

After the meeting, she told the Otago Daily Times the message to the council came after watching heated conversations on Queenstown community social media sites on Saturday following a serious crash involving overseas drivers at Gibbston, and a crash at Moeraki in which 5-year-old Ruby Jay Marris, of Oamaru, was killed.

A Chinese tourist, with interim name suppression, faces five charges of dangerous driving causing injury and one of dangerous driving causing Ruby's death.

Ms Turner said while posting on community social media sites was a good way for people to unite on the issue ''it doesn't change anything''.

''For me ... they're community leaders, whether or not they can change it ... they need to know.''

Ms Turner had lived in Queenstown for more than four years, but had seen a noticeable increase in dangerous driving over the past two months.

It was not limited to tourists, she said.

''There are resident issues as well [in] the way we are reacting to the issue. It's making it worse.

''Reacting aggressively to tourists doesn't stop the problem.

''Being offensive to tourists doesn't stop the problem.

''Channel your really good ideas in a way that matters, through one means ... the council, or form a group, but do something that matters, rather than [complain].''

 

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