Police call for cool heads as Hawke's Bay road deaths stay low

Summer rain on Hawke's Bay roads last year. Police warn to be beware of changes in conditions to help prevent tragedies on the road. Photo / File

Police want cool heads and common sense to prevail on Hawke's Bay roads as the region continues one of its longest fatality-free periods for several years.

The first decent shower in a long time, traditionally one of the trickiest periods to drive due to the prolonged build-up of oil and grease on the tarmac, is on its way.

It's almost three months since the last fatal crash on Hawke's Bay roads, the deaths of two people after a motorcycle collided with a logging truck on State Highway 5 near Te Pohue, between Napier and Taupo on the morning of December 6.

The death of an 80-year-old woman in Waikato Hospital on February 25, 15 days after a crash in northern Hawke's Bay, is being investigated as possibly caused by a medical event and depending on the outcome might not be included in the official road toll.

The woman was the sole occupant of a car which struck the side of a State Highway 2 bridge near Whakaki, between Wairoa and Nuhaka, and veered across the highway for up to a kilometre before crossing the road and crashing into in a ditch soon after midday on February 10.

The December 6 tragedy took the 2019 toll across five local council areas from Wairoa in the north to Tararua in the south to 24.

The highest since 2010, it was part of a central North Island toll comprising more than half of the national toll of 353, which was the lowest in four years.

In the last 30 years, the highest tolls were in 1990, with 55 in Hawke's Bay and 729 nationwide. The lowest, in more than half-a-century, was the Hawke's Bay toll of six and the national toll of 253 in 2013.

According to the Ministry of Transport daily update, the provision national road toll to Sunday night was 55, the lowest in at least five years for the first two months on the calendar.

Police Eastern District road policing manager Inspector Matt Broderick said that while there might be anecdotal evidence of slower traffic in recent times it was not supported by "detection" patterns for the numbers of driving offences.

There could be a variety of factors in a decreased toll, including the impact of fuel prices and even coronavirus, which appears to have disrupted normal tourist travel and freight cartage.

He said there hadn't been anything in the statistics to suggest an adjustment of steps and methods used by police to try to prevent tragedies on the road.

Police say motorists should still make sure they keep within the speed limit, drive to the conditions, and pull-over if driving at a lower speed which might be impeding other traffic.

Amid the continuing dry and near-drought conditions in parts of Hawke's Bay, some change in driving conditions on Wednesday with the extension of a front moving north from the South Island.

A MetService meteorologist said while coming from the west there could be some showers in Hawke's Bay.

Conditions are otherwise expected to be fine with temperatures still in the mid-high 20s at the weekend, a period usually prone to some wetter weather, most notably in Cyclone Bola 33 years ago.

It brought extremes of over 700mm in some areas on March 6-8, 1988, as much as seven-times the March average.

Following a long period of hot weather and another near-drought it caused widespread erosion on Northern Hawke's Bay hillside, devastating farms over a wide area, and also caused the collapse of the Wairoa town bridge, which left the town split in two for two years before a replacement was completed.