A DUNEDIN man is calling for improved signs at a city motorway exit after narrowly avoiding a crash with a vehicle driving on the wrong side of the road. Ron Morris (56) said he came within a metre of a head-on collision on the Southern Motorway at Burnside recently, after he slammed on his brakes to avoid a car driving south in the northbound lane.
It appeared the elderly driver, who also braked suddenly to avoid the collision, had entered the motorway on Main South Rd by turning left on to the motorway exit, he said.
Mr Morris, who was shaken by the near miss, said improvements to the signage were needed to stop similar incidents.
"There are signs of some sort in place, but maybe there needs to be more signs or they need to be lower, on ground level,'' he said.
The experience had been traumatic and Mr Morris had suffered from stress and loss of sleep as a result.
"I closed my eyes last night and all I could see was this car coming towards me.
"I've never had a near-death experience like it, to be honest.‘‘I really count myself lucky to be alive.''
Mr Morris was driving about 100kmh at the time of the incident, while the elderly driver was travelling much slower, he said.
The two cars were only a metre apart when they both came to a stop.
Mr Morris said he got out of his vehicle and held on to the woman's car door to stop her driving away before police arrived.
Senior Sergeant Craig Brown, of Dunedin, said the 84-year-old woman had been travelling south from Fairfield when she entered the motorway via an exit lane.
No charges had been laid but the incident had been reported and the woman could receive an infringement notice or lose her licence, he said.
Dunedin City Council network development and operations manager Michael Harrison said there had been an increase in people driving the wrong way in one-way streets recently.
"There does seem to have been something of a change in recent months.
"We're not sure why at this stage but it's something that seems to be happening increasingly on our network.
"We are watching and trying to learn more information.''
The Dunedin Southern Motorway is controlled by the New Zealand Transport Agency.
NZTA projects team manager Simon Underwood said he would be interested to hear what led the woman to make the wrong turn.
