Street Sign Theft Common Throughout Eastern Bay

Complaints of street sign theft in Awatapu has drawn local attention, but the Whakatāne District Council said theft is an issue faced across the area.

Team Leader of Transport Strategy & Assets Joe Metcalfe said theft of street signs has been an issue for years. 

Last year the Whakatāne District Council spent $25,000 on replacing the stolen signs, and he said that was not limited to one area. 

"Obviously, in urban areas, they're targets for people as they walk home."

"But even in our rural areas, we do seem to lose a few of them, particularly the ones with wooden posts."

Once stolen, non-safety critical signs or street signs can take a few weeks to be replaced he said. 

"Some of them have to be specially manufactured and then obviously couriered to us as well, so it can take a little while for some of them to be reinstated."

He acknowledges not having street signs can make places difficult to find but said emergency services can find locations even without street signs. 

"Most emergency services should have their GPS-based systems, which are usually pretty accurate."

"They can find their way pretty much anywhere, especially in the rural areas."

For more urgent cases like the removal of a stop sign, are replaced in a week. 

If the signs are relocated, "we'll put them back into circulation as long as they're not in too bad a state of repair," he said. 

The ongoing cost, is larger than just monetary value he explained. 

"When our stop signs or some of our chevrons go missing, these are quite critical to keeping people safe on the roads."

"And the last thing we want is for someone to miss an intersection because there's no signage and then be hit by another car or go into a tree."

Despite the potential danger, there is not much the Council can do to prevent the theft he said. 

"There's not much we can do to fix them better to the posts or fix them better into the ground."

"We've sort of done what we can there."

"Anything further will end up costing a lot more than it will probably save us, to be honest," he said.

The best way to prevent any theft is the community keeping an eye out for suspicious behaviour he said. 

He urges people to call Police if they see someone stealing a sign or inform the Council when a sign is already missing. 

Largely, culprits tend to be young people said Metcalfe. 

"I think we were all young once and always thought it was a good idea to jump on a sign or to have a bit of fun with them."

"It's just one of those things I think young people do."

However he said older people are known to keep signs too. 

"It is common for people to have a collection of them in their garages, so often when signs go missing, they are not found again." he said. 

"I think once they're in someone's garage, they typically stay there."

For anyone cleaning out their garages, Metcalfe said "they're more than welcome to leave them on our doorstep and we'll put them to good use again."

He urges the public to stop stealing to protect drivers.