Couple at accident hot-spot fear fatal crash

A Portobello Rd couple are waiting, in dread, for the night two bends outside their house claim their first fatality.

Deborah and Alistair Price live at Sunnybrae, about 5km from the Dunedin end of the road that runs along the edge of Otago Harbour.

So far this year, they estimate there have been between 10 and 15 crashes on the 100m stretch of road outside their house.

In the most recent, on Friday night, four young people, in a car travelling towards Dunedin, left the road, hit a power pole, turned upside down and landed in about 1.5m of water.

When Mr Price arrived on the scene, the driver and another young man were dragging two screaming young women from the car in which they had been trapped.

Mrs Price: "Friday night was particularly awful, just listening to the young girls screaming.

"It was just so horrible."

Mr Price understood only the young men's quick reactions and an air pocket inside the vehicle had prevented a tragedy.

The Prices have lived at Sunnybrae for 20 years and normally expect a crash once every two months.

But, they believe the situation has become worse this year and now Mrs Price dials 111 as soon as she hears the squeal of tyres.

"You can hear the squeal. We just wait for the bang."

A few hours after Friday night's crash, Mrs Price heard squealing tyres again but the "bang" did not come.

"I was thinking, it's going to happen again. I was a little bit on edge actually."

There has not been a fatality at the bends, but the Prices believe "one of these nights" someone will die there.

Mr Price considered speed was the usual cause, but the camber of the road was also a problem.

The power pole hit in the latest crash has been in place only a month.

Its predecessor was broken in two by a vehicle that crashed and then drove off.