Editorial: Heartening to see low road toll

It is with a little fear of courting disaster that with less than 48 hours remaining of 2013 we trumpet an extraordinary cut in Hawke's Bay's road toll.

Late yesterday, the toll in the area from Nuhaka in the north to the Tararua District area south of Dannevirke, was six, with none since September.

That's just a tenth of the tombstone tolls of more than 60 in the 1970s, a sixth of the high of the last decade (37 in 2005). The next lowest toll in the last 50 years was 16 in 2008, and last year 23 died.

The record national toll was 843 in 1973, and this year's toll will be the lowest since.

Any death is, of course, one too many, as it will be until the toll is what it was before a motorcyclist killed colliding with a train in Dunedin became New Zealand's first fatality of the motorised era in 1905.

However, despite the vastly increased number of vehicles, there is now an established downward trend, particularly since 1990 when 729 were killed, the last time the annual toll was more than 700.

Three years later, it was 600. The last year it was over 500 was 1999, and this year's toll will be the sixth in a row under 400.

Alcohol and excessive speed have been the profile targets of road safety campaigns, but there have been dozens of other factors, including road engineering improvements and more latter-day focus on driver fatigue and better driver education. These factors are highlighted in Safer Journeys, New Zealand's Road Safety Strategy for 2010-2020.

While the police are seen as the front line and it is multi-agency, it also emphasises road safety is the responsibility of all New Zealanders. Somehow, it feels good that we can all share in this record.