Eastern District Police road policing manager Matt Broderick left perplexed over the number of fatalities in the region, despite being under lockdown for large spells of the year. Photo / Paul Taylor
Eastern District Police road policing manager Matt Broderick left perplexed over the number of fatalities in the region, despite being under lockdown for large spells of the year. Photo / Paul Taylor
Three motorbike riders have died in a month on Hawke's Bay roads, a tragic spate in an already grim year on Hawke's Bay roads that has a regional road police officer searching for answers.
A male motorcyclist was killed after a crash on State Highway 2, near Waipawa, Central Hawke'sBay, about 11.40am on Saturday.
It follows the death of Edward De Villiers Winiana in a motorbike crash on State Highway 38 near Tuai on September 8.
Eric David Gordon died in a crash on the Hawke's Bay Expressway, Napier, on October 2.
It means 17 people have died on Hawke's Bay roads in 2020 – the highest death toll in the region in the previous five years.
A male motorcyclist was killed after a crash on State Highway 2, near Waipawa, Central Hawke's Bay, about 11.40am on Saturday. Photo / Paul Taylor
Despite a road toll rise in Hawke's Bay, numbers are decreasing nationwide, with a total of 243 fatalities on roads across New Zealand in 2020 – down from 264 in 2019, 286 in 2018 and 295 in 2017.
Eastern District Police road policing manager Matt Broderick said there was no feasible explanation behind the rise in fatalities on Hawke's Bay roads.
Broderick said the entire country had spent around three months in lockdown due to Covid-19, helping decrease fatalities nationwide.
"Nationally, the death statistics are down – as we spent a good chunk of months not travelling anywhere this year, you'd expect numbers to be down," he said.
"What is alarming in the Eastern District is our death totals are not down and we had a large bulk period where nobody was travelling by road."
Broderick added: "If I could answer the question as to why fatalities are so high here, I'd be the road safety guru of the world."
Of the 17 fatalities on Hawke's Bay roads this calendar year, 10 have occurred on state highways, four on open roads and three on urban roads.
Broderick said Eastern District Police were concentrating on four significant contributing crash factors – restraints, substances, distractions and speed.
"If you wear a restraint you are far more likely to survive and if you're not impaired by any substances, you're far less likely to be involved in a significant incident," he said.
"If you concentrate and don't drive distracted – whether that's technology, tiredness or things around you – you're less likely to crash and most importantly, the speed that an incident occurs at - the more speed, the more energy, the more likely you are going to end up with significant injuries."
Broderick said he also felt a number of stretches of roads in the region don't have a "safe and appropriate speed limits".
