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A Stanmore Bay family is calling for urgent traffic-calming measures on Vipond Road after a car lost control and crashed into their house, narrowly missing their eight-year-old daughter’s favourite play spot.
The driver was left with serious injuries after the crash, which happened just before 5pm on Friday June 19. Stanmore Bay resident Ksenia Zograf says the car crossed the road, smashed two letterboxes, crossed the driveway and the lawn before hitting the house and destroying the deck.
Her daughter often plays on the deck after school, she says, but luckily, as it was winter, she was inside at the time.
“We have seven kids in the neighbourhood, one boy loves playing being a landscape maintenance guy on this lawn, the girls love hanging out on the lawn, every day at about this time, a young couple expecting their first baby pass by on the way to the beach with their dog so we avoided disaster by pure chance, she says.”
A neighbour who witnessed the crash told Ksenia the car had swerved onto the wrong side of the road, nearly hitting her and her partner moments earlier. She was calling police to report the dangerous driving when the car lost control and crashed into Ksenia’s property.
Ksenia says the near-miss has shaken the close-knit street, especially as residents also walk the same route to Stanmore Bay beach at that time each day, she says.
The crash is the latest in a pattern of dangerous driving on Vipond Road, including regular tailgating, speeding and aggressive behaviour towards drivers slowing to turn into driveways, she says. When she posted about the crash on Facebook, she says other residents shared similar experiences, including previous crashes at the corner of Vipond Road and Joydon Place.
“The corner of Joydon Place and Vipond Road is one of the worst spots and although it is marked with a 35km/h sign, drivers often sped through there,” she says.
“I can’t help feeling the situation is just a ticking time bomb – the cars losing control end up on the pathways where people and kids walk, kids riding scooters, kids walking to and from school.”
Ksenia believes drivers using Vipond Road as a rat-run to avoid traffic on Whangaparāoa Road are contributing to the problem.
She is calling for speed bumps or traffic islands to be installed on Vipond Road, particularly at the Joydon Place corner, and wants the matter prioritised by the local board and Auckland Transport.
