KEY POINTS:
Auckland and Wellington are bucking a worrying national rise in road deaths which is threatening an ambitious Government safety target.
Between January 1 and Thursday, 399 people died on the country's roads, up by 34 from the same time last year.
But the death rates in the Auckland
and Wellington regions were running substantially lower than in previous years.
The 12-month running national toll to December 13 was 427 deaths, a figure higher than in three of the past five calendar years.
That is a particular setback from last year, when the annual toll of 391 deaths was the lowest since 1960.
This year's rebounding toll has prompted an admission of concern from the Government, in a draft update issued last week of transport strategy, "that on current progress, the target of 300 deaths annually by 2010 will be challenging to reach".
"The target of 2200 serious injuries annually by 2010 is also unlikely to be reached," the update adds.
But as the Government considers a range of new measures, including a total alcohol ban for young drivers and an extension of the graduated licensing period, a series of smaller-scale safety moves in Auckland seems to be paying off.
The region's toll stood at 56 deaths on Tuesday, compared with 78 at the same time last year.
Even after a double-fatality in a crash on George Bolt Drive near the airport on Wednesday night, Auckland is enjoying a markedly bigger reduction in road deaths than any other region.
Of three other regions where the toll was lower than last year, Wellington was the next most impressive, down to 14 deaths compared with the previous annual count of 31.
The country's worst regional toll by far was in the Waikato, where 85 people had died by last week, compared with 54 at the same time last year.
Auckland City has achieved stand-out safety results, having recorded just four deaths on its roads compared with 12 last year.
City council road safety manager Karen Hay said it was a welcome improvement from an average annual toll of 14 deaths for the five years to the end of 2006.
The city recorded a decline in serious injuries as well, down to 84 against an annual average of 127 over the previous three years.
Ms Hay praised Aucklanders for their response to a number of safety initiatives including signals for pedestrian crossings at black spots, 40km/h speed limits outside a growing number of schools, and electronic signs telling drivers how fast they are travelling.
"We may not be building big motorways, but we have been putting in a lot of hard work on all kinds of projects," she said.
"We have been really acting on our black spots, working through the community and getting support from the police in our Auckland district.
"People are being made more aware of safety, that their actions impact on others as well as themselves."
But Ms Hay said there was no room for complacency, and the number of crashes on Auckland's roads remained unacceptable in terms of its contribution to the 2010 safety target.
Land Transport NZ spokesman Andy Knackstedt said that despite the setback to national road safety, and the ambitiousness of the target, his and other agencies would keep working towards it.
Both that target, and a longer-term Government goal of no more than 200 road deaths by 2040 had been deliberately set high.
"There's not much point in setting targets that are easy to achieve," he said.
"In terms of 2010, it's certainly looming large and is not going to be easy to reach, but it is still what the agencies are focused on."
Ministry of Transport strategy and sustainability general manager John Allard told the Auckland Regional Transport Authority last week that the number of road deaths had more than halved from 843 in the blackest year, 1973, so the target for 2040 should not be dismissed as unattainable.
"We halved the toll in the last 30 years, so perhaps halving it again is not unrealistic."
The Government said in issuing an update last week of the national transport strategy that the annual social cost of motor injury crashes was $3.6 billion.
It would like more than 25 per cent of cars to have electronic stability control by 2015, compared with less than 5 per cent now.
GOVERNMENT ROAD TOLL TARGETS
By 2010 - No more than 300 deaths
By 2040 - No more than 200 deaths
RECORD SO FAR
12-month total to Thursday - 427 deaths
Last year's toll - 391 deaths
Worst toll - 843 deaths (in 1973)