Editorial: Police right to get tough after deaths

The tough stance taken by police to bring down last year's high road toll in the Bay is commendable.

They will continue adopting a zero tolerance attitude to the "fatal five" crash factors of alcohol, speed, seatbelts and restraints, high-risk drivers and high-risk driving behaviour.

This is in direct response to the fact that the Bay's road toll leapt up to 20 deaths last year, after only six deaths in 2013. It would be good if the toll could be zero but unfortunately that probably is too big an ask.

This is one of those things that needs to be hammered home all the time - what you do on the road affects others. It is easy to think one is invincible in a motor vehicle, but all it takes is one slight error and you could be dead.

When you consider how close cars travelling in the opposite direction are to each other at the point of passing, you realise just how easy it is for head-on collisions to happen, especially when one or the other vehicle is speeding.

Senior Sergeant Greg Brown of the Hawke's Bay road policing team says he has noticed that a high proportion are head-on or other two vehicle crashes. He puts this down to driver inattention and vehicles crossing the centre line.

"When you look at where they happened and how they happened, you shake your head."

And then, of course, we have drink driving. It was interesting to see the results of a police morning-after exercise, where they breathalysed motorists between 7am and midday on New Year's Day to see if they were still drunk from the night before. They caught 12 people and the scary thing is that, of those 12, eight had breath-alcohol readings of more than 400mcg - the old limit before the law changed in December.

Is it a "she'll be right" sort of attitude or an "I don't care" one?

Either way, it is quite alarming to think that 12 people thought it was okay to get behind the wheel sozzled. Goodness knows how many innocent families they drove past in that state.

Let's hope that the eight who have to appear in court get a judge in a bad mood. They need to be taught a lesson.

On a positive note, it was good to hear that in the police blitz at the Hastings race course on Thursday, 99 per cent of drivers leaving the races blew no alcohol whatsoever.

Now, that's the way to do it.