'She’s still in shock': Car smashes across three properties, stops metres from girl's room

A late-night crash involving a car that crossed three Flaxmere properties jolted a family awake at their Dundee Drive home.

The car ripped out resident Addie Wainohu’s letterbox, Australia-made business sign, garden beds and a 40-year-old tree before coming to rest in the driveway next door, where two vehicles were also damaged.

But Wainohu was most concerned that the car came within about 2m of the bedroom where her 17-year-old granddaughter was sleeping.

“She’s still in shock because she had the full impact,” Wainohu said of last Saturday’s crash.

“Had any one of us been standing outside our homes, we would have been killed.”

Wainohu, who has lived on Dundee Drive since she was a teenager, estimated the damage to her property alone could cost about $5000 to fix.

Fibre-optic cables along her fence line were also severed and later repaired by Chorus.

Addie Wainohu stands outside her Dundee Drive property, where a crash tore out a tree, business sign, garden beds, fibre-optic cables and part of the fence line. The letterbox has since been replaced. Photo / Rafaella Melo

Police said they were called about the crash at 12.20am on August 15.

“No injuries were reported and there was some damage to property,” a spokeswoman said.

“Police are making inquiries.”

That crash was not the first Wainohu had experienced.

About 10 years ago, another vehicle left the road in what Wainohu described as an almost identical crash and damaged her property.

She said Hastings District Council (HDC) assessed the road after that crash but the only change she saw was faded white road markings being repainted.

Wainohu said she was told at the time the street would be put on a waiting list for further work.

Several other crashes and near-misses over the years, she said, had never been formally reported.

Wainohu said a nearby property fence was hit three times, while a visitor’s parked vehicle outside another neighbouring house had recently been struck from behind.

Wainohu said she believed the shape of Dundee Drive was part of the problem.

“It’s probably one of the most unusual shapes you can have in a road. It’s shaped like a horseshoe,” she said.

“When you’re coming around the bend, you don’t know you’re going to be turning around a bend. There’s nothing to tell you.”

Although the speed limit is 50km/h, she said even drivers travelling within the limit could underestimate the turn if they were unfamiliar with the road.

“You think you can see a road running straight through, but when you get down, coming further, you realise there’s no road, and so that’s why they end up hitting the neighbour straight on his fence line.”

She said residents could often hear vehicles accelerating before reaching the bend.

“When I hear the vehicles speeding, my heart just goes, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to happen again’.”

Addie Wainohu points to the sharp bend on Dundee Drive, which she says drivers unfamiliar with the road can underestimate. Photo / Rafaella Melo

Wainohu this week formally asked the council for a new road safety assessment and consideration of warning signs, advisory speed signs, traffic-calming measures and barriers.

“Realistically, all they need to do is something with that funny road that’s down there, or put arrow signs around the bend so you even know that there’s a bend.”

After watching crashes and near-misses for years, Wainohu said she no longer wanted to wait.

“Somebody is going to be killed. It’s going to happen,” she said.

An HDC spokesperson said Wainohu’s request had been referred for further investigation.

Council records showed nine reported crashes on Dundee Dr between 2016 and 2025, including two injury crashes.

The council said the only other police-attended crash recorded near Wainohu’s property was in June 2014.

It had no record confirming whether a road safety assessment was carried out after that crash, although a review of the following five years did not identify concerns requiring an assessment, the spokesperson said.

The site did not meet the criteria for traffic-calming measures.

“On the basis of the reported crash history over the last five years, with the crashes being dispersed along Dundee Drive, the criteria for traffic calming is not able to be met in terms of both the crash history and the surveyed speeds at this time.”

Residents were encouraged to report incidents and near-misses to help the council identify patterns and determine whether further investigation or intervention was needed.