Hawke's Bay has bucked the national trend by posting the region's second-lowest road toll in more than 50 years.
While the national toll was up for the fourth year in a row, figures provided to Hawke's Bay Today by the Ministry of Transport show there were 13 road fatalities in the Wairoa, Hastings, Central Hawke's Bay and Tararua districts and Napier City - four down on the area's 2015 toll of 17.
While the December 23 - January 4 national holiday road toll was 50 per cent up on last year's Christmas-New Year toll, Hawke's Bay had by yesterday been without a fatality on
its roads for almost two months.
The toll for the Eastern Police District, which extends from East Cape to Norsewood and doesn't include Tararua, was also 13, two down on the 2015 total for the district.
Elsewhere, New Year's Eve and early New Year's Day were a disaster on the roads with three people killed in separate incidents in fewer than six hours.
The death of a person in a single-vehicle crash in the Christchurch suburb of Spotswood just after 9pm on Saturday took the national toll for 2016 provisionally to 326, the highest since 375 died in 2010.
The new year got off to a bad start, with two pedestrians killed by 2.30am after being struck by vehicles in separate incidents in Northland. The first, just after 1.15am, was a man who was struck by a car in Pa Road, Kerikeri. The second, about 60km away and just before 2.30am, was a female pedestrian killed on Oruru Rd, south of the Doubtless Bay settlement of Taipa.
The toll for the new year soon rose to three after a truck crash about 12.30pm yesterday between the Western Bay of Plenty towns of Whakatane and Matata.
The deaths took the national holiday road toll to 18, six more than last year's toll, and significantly bigger than any of the state tolls in Australia, including New South Wales (population 7.6 million) and Victoria (5.9 million), which up to Friday night each had fewer than 10 of the Australia-wide toll of 27.
The figures provided to Hawke's Bay Today show that in the first 17 years of the new millennium (since January 1, 2000), 381 drivers, riders, passengers and pedestrians have died in crashes and other incidents on Hawke's Bay roads, part of a nationwide 17-year toll of 6346.
The Hawke's Bay average of 22.4 a year compares with highs of more than 60 in the early 1970s and the low of six in 2010, while the national 2000-2016 average of 373.3 a year compares with the record of 843 in 1973, and the 253 in 2010, the lowest since 1950.
Police Eastern District road policing manager Matt Broderick, in Gisborne overseeing traffic control surrounding the Rhythm n' Vines Festival, said it was difficult to find a single factor leading to Hawke's Bay bucking the road toll trend.
While there have been significant improvements in attitudes to drink-driving - Gisborne checkpoint officers noting numerous thanks from young people for "keeping us safe," alcohol remains a factor, but there have been significant campaigns against excessive speeds in the conditions applying, and planning to improve roads, many sections having "no room for distraction".
Mr Broderick said Hawke's Bay "does not fare too well" in the grading of roads, compared nationally on a set of safety factors, and is being supported in a government strategy to improve the conditions.
Among the projects is the upgrading of Hawke's Bay Expressway, Watchman's Rd, Hawke's Bay Airport area, rated among the top five risk areas on state highways nationwide and due mid-year for a start on major work, including a roundabout and new airport entrance.