Morning Headlines | Plea for calm on last day of Christmas shopping and some meat prices up 25% within a year | Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Hawke’s Bay will have its highest annual road toll in at least five years as it heads into the holiday season, despite a decline in the national toll.
A fatal crash on remote Ngawaka Rd, south of Waipukurau, on December 17 took the provisional 2025 toll on roads from Wairoato Tararua to 21 – the most since 2020, and seven more than in 2024.
The provisional nationwide toll on December 20 was 267, 10 fewer than at the same stage of 2024, when the final toll for the year was 292.
It was the first road toll under 300 since the same number was recorded in 2014. The highest annual toll was 843 in 1973, and the lowest was 253 in 2013.
Last week’s road fatality was the second in central and southern Hawke’s Bay (the Tararua District) this month.
The first was the driver of a car involved in a collision with a truck on State Highway 2 near Matamau, between Dannevirke and Norsewood, about 9.50am on December 5.
Officers are trying to deter the driver behaviour which leads to Christmas road tragedies. Photo / NZME
He was travelling to visit a client when the crash occurred.
Monkeytoe Group chief executive Harvey Fisher said Broomhall was an integral part of the company.
“He demonstrated and lived our values every day and was well-loved and respected by clients and colleagues alike.”
The crash is being investigated.
No details had yet been released relating to last week’s fatality.
The annual Christmas-New Year holiday road toll period starts at 4pm on Wednesday and ends at 5am on January 5.
There was just one fatality on Hawke’s Bay roads in the 2024/25 Christmas-New Year Holiday period, compared with 22 the previous year.
Almost half of the national 2024 toll involved driver or rider use of drugs or alcohol, 72 involved excessive speed, and 37 involved driver fatigue or diverted attention.
The potential tragedy of driving under the impairment of alcohol or drugs was highlighted in Hawke’s Bay during the 2024/25 Christmas-New Year holiday period, in a crash in the rural outskirts of Havelock North.
A 19-year-old passenger died, a fellow passenger, also 19, was left with serious spinal injuries, and the driver, 20, was sentenced to two years and three months’ jail after admitting causing death and injury while driving under the influence of cannabis.
Eastern Police District road policing manager Inspector Angela Hallett, whose area extends from Central Hawke’s Bay to East Cape (and does not include Tararua) will work through most of the holiday period.
She says it “goes with the job” as she and other officers try to prevent tragedies.
She said the simple rules are for drivers to allow plenty of time to reach their destinations and to focus on the job, meaning no excessive speed, taking notice of limits and road signs, no driving while impaired, and “stay off the phones”.
Doug Laing, based with Hawke’s Bay Today in Napier, has been a reporter since 1973 - the year New Zealand had its highest-ever road toll. He has reported on most aspects of news, from success to tragedy.
