Police hope for 'remarkable' zero Easter road toll

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The top roading cop is hoping for a "remarkable" zero road deaths this Easter after a promising start to the holiday.

Five people were killed on the roads last Easter but there have been no fatalities so far this year.

Acting national road policing manager Rob Morgan said it was hard to attribute any one factor to the lack of fatalities so far, but he was hoping the toll could be maintained.

"It would be remarkable and I'm certainly hopeful, but in the end it's up to each individual to look after their own safety and the safety of those in their vehicle," he told APNZ.

"We can just hope that the message has been getting through to people, that they are keeping their speed down, that they're not drinking and driving, and they're looking after themselves really."

One factor was a lower tolerance for speeding over holiday weekends, with police stopping motorists driving at more than 4km/h over the limit.

"The analysis we've done shows that on weekends that we've run it, compared with weekends that it's not there, that we have less crashes over those weekends."

Mr Morgan said reducing speed was a key to surviving a crash.

"It's the sudden stop at the end that causes all the damage."

Police had attended 377 road crashes by 1pm today, slightly less than 395 by the same time last Easter Sunday.

Mr Morgan said drivers should continue to take care as people returned from holidays over the next couple of days.

"We'd just like to encourage people to be patient. That's going to be the biggest thing for them returning from their holiday.

"There will be queues and if they just show some patience, accept that there will be queues and the traffic might be travelling slow. But in the end, the object of the exercise is to get home, to have a safe journey."

The Easter road toll period began at 4pm Thursday and ends at 6am Tuesday.

The death of an 84-year-old man who crashed a car after a heart attack yesterday will not count towards the road toll.

The man died in Auckland Hospital after the crash in Glen Innes, Auckland, yesterday morning.

Mr Morgan said the coroner had ruled the heart attack was the cause of death.