Low road toll little consolation for victims' families

12.00pm

While the Christmas road toll is the lowest since 1996 , it is a small consolation for families who lost loved ones, the Land Transport Safety Association (LTSA) says.

By the end of the official Christmas period at 6am today, the road toll stood provisionally at 16 compared with 21 at the same time last year.

LTSA spokesman Andy Knackstedt said it was pleasing to see the road toll drop but 16 was "still fairly high" for such a short period.

'And for those 16 families affected it must have been a pretty miserable Christmas."

While it was too early to say with certainty what had made the difference this year, it seemed that more people were heeding road safety messages, he said.

Acting national road safety manager Inspector Allan Boreham agreed, saying a combination of enforcement and education was consistently bringing the toll down.

"We're down from 21 last year; this is part of an on-going trend of decreases in road deaths throughout the year, not just the holiday periods."

The suspected culprits in this year's accidents were "the traditional killers" of alcohol and speed, he said.

"Fatigue and not wearing seat belts are contributing factors, but we think the message is getting through.

"The average road speed in New Zealand has dropped a couple of kilometres (per hour) in the past two years, which is very significant in international terms, and drink-driving is on the decrease.

"We put that down to more stringent enforcement and education," Mr Boreham told NZPA.

The Automobile Association (AA) said a visible police presence on the roads had more effect in getting the holiday road toll down than covert operations.

AA spokesman George Fairbairn said the road toll was "encouraging".

"It shows the public is starting to take a more responsible attitude to driving over the holiday period, which we'd like to see continue throughout the year."

He credited strong safety messages from the LTSA and "a more visible police presence" on the highways with changing drivers' habits.

"We have always said for many years that police cars on the roads out there among the traffic have more affect on modifying driver behaviour than covert operations like lasers."

Speed continued to be a common factor in most accidents, and New Zealand drivers had to learn to "drive to the conditions", he said.

"Just because the speed limit is 100kmh, doesn't mean to say you have to drive at 100kmh all the time in all weathers.

"People should use commonsense."

- NZPA

Herald feature: Cutting the road toll

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