The safety of a section of State Highway 1 where a 5-year-old Oamaru girl was killed in a head-on crash earlier this year is being improved.
The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) yesterday started painting ''keep left'' arrows on the section of road near the intersections with the roads to the Moeraki township and the Moeraki Boulders, around the site of the crash in which Ruby Marris died earlier this year.
It will then begin ''a business case to consider what [other] safety, resilience and efficiency improvements should occur between Oamaru and Dunedin on State Highway 1''.
NZTA senior safety engineer Roy Johnston said the arrow-marking was to have been done sooner but was delayed because of ''wet and cold winter weather''.
There have been two fatal crashes between the Katiki railway overbridge and the Moeraki Boulders turn-off this year.
The first was on February 15, when a utility driven by Chinese tourist Jing Cao smashed head-on into the Marris family's car, killing Ruby and injuring four of her family.
Last week, Ruby's uncle Chris Cant expressed his disappointment that work on New Zealand highways had not been completed by July 1, as announced by Associate Transport Minister Craig Foss on March 5, the day of Ruby's funeral.
Without tougher, mandatory measures, Mr Cant feared more people would be killed this summer in accidents involving foreign drivers.
Mr Cant, contacted at home this week, said the confirmation work would soon begin was ''great'' news.
The highway around Moeraki carried high volumes of tourist traffic, but there had been ''nothing there at all'' to help guide foreign drivers, he said.
''It's just good to see something's going to be done about it.''
The addition of ''keep left'' arrows would be a good start, but a basic driving test was needed as well to ensure other families did not have to experience similar pain, he believed.
''I know it's hard ... but I never wish anyone to go through that experience like that.''
Ruby's death was followed months later by that of Oamaru woman Ema Louise McGeown (27), who died in a single-vehicle crash on State Highway 1 near Moeraki, in July.
She was driving north from the Palmerston area and ran off the road at a bend just south of the Moeraki turn-off.
Last week, police were called to a crash on State Highway 1, near the Moeraki township turn-off, after the foreign driver of a Toyota Estima rental vehicle attempted to complete a U-turn and was hit by a following Mazda Familia.
Another vehicle had rolled off the road near the Moeraki boulders and township intersections earlier that day.
