Doug Laing
As a Hawke's Bay whanau, hapu and marae and a scouts and a Wellington family mourn the loss of eight lives in a Sunday-morning road crash six days ago there should be little conjecture about what may have happened.
But generally there are some frightening statistics that show some long-term trends that something is going on on roads across the central North Island, where the road toll has been increasing the last two years while decreasing almost everywhere else in the country.
From Taranaki to Bay of Plenty, including Whanganui, Manawatu and Waikato, the road toll last year was up as much as it was down in the rest of the country.
Had it been in sync with the rest of the country and declining at the same rate, the national toll last year could have been under 300, not the 377 listed by the New Zealand Transport Agency as the provisional toll for 2018.
It hasn't stopped, with figures on Wednesday showing that across the central North Island, this time including our own regions of Hawke's Bay and Gisborne, the road toll is already 19 up on that at the same time last year.
At 73 over the 120 days of the first four months it averaged one fatality every 40 hours.
It's more than half the toll nationwide, in an area with far less a share of the population.
The road toll this year is down in every other area except Wellington, and but for the increase in the tragedies across the mid-North the national toll for the year to date would be about a dozen less than it was to the same date last year.
From the feelings of hopelessness that surround each tragedy, in which the formal period of mourning is really just the start of the grieving process, emerges a prayer for everyone to keep safe.
But beyond, and certainly never soon enough, is the thought about what can actually make it safer, and are their factors that conspire to make the block of terrain from Awakino and Opunake to the Coromandel and East Cape and from Palmerston North to Hamilton a less safe place to be motoring.
Without question the thinking caps will be on in the context of the Safer Journeys strategy, now well through its third and final "action plan" (2016-2020) with a focus on enabling smart and safe choices on the road, making motorcycling safer, ensuring roads and roadsides support safer travel, and encouraging safe vehicles.
The previous two plans of the 10-year strategy focused on raising public awareness through advertising campaigns, lowering blood alcohol levels, making high-risk roads safer through rumble strips and median barriers, and the more specific issue of mandating electronic stability control for light vehicles.
The weather on the Taupo-Tokoroa stretch of SH1 on Sunday was intermittently treacherous, police describing the crash scene between Wairakei and Atiamuri as wet though unsure if it had been raining at the time the crash happened.
Motorists on the highway around the time will have passed trucks and other large vehicles with spray pluming to the sides, noticed slippery conditions in some segments, and been wary of other vehicles perhaps not handling the conditions as quite they should.
Debate will continue over how quickly median strip separation should be completed, and whether something should be done about the levels and types of transport on the road, and, as an aside, whether there are enough places to pull over to answer that blasted cellphone.
By late in the week police believed there were no direct witnesses, despite the relatively open-view nature of the bend on which it happened, leaving room for questions over whether the actions of an unknown third and possibly unwitting party might have played any part in the catastrophe, although police have said they are not seeking any other vehicle.
It is possible, likely even, that there will never be full closure for bereaved whanau - it's hard to imagine, right now, how there could be.
But New Zealand has an internationally-respected road crash investigation team that will be doing its best to find out what happened, in the interests particularly of trying to ensure such tragic circumstances do not arise again.
While the usual tangihanga korero is taking place amid the grief at Timikara Marae, and the focus strengthens towards the wellbeing of the surviving two boys in the whanau, the ultimate tribute to this family may be in finally making State Highway 1, at least, a tragedy-free zone as far as that can be possibly achieved.
It is, after all, New Zealand's main drag, and carries huge and increasing numbers of logging and milk trucks which enter and exit the laneway at various points, along with the intercity freight movements and large numbers of tourist drivers, often people barely in the country a few hours or days, almost wholly unfamiliar with the variances of New Zealand's roading infrastructure.
As a very sad week comes to an end may we all remember to do our bit to be safe on the roads, and remember Jenny David and Margaret, Trinity, Chanley, Jahnero, Akacia, and Khyus, surviving sons and brothers Legacy and David, and eighth victim Jenny Rodgers.