Road toll still too high - police

File photo / Herald on Sunday

Five people died on the country's roads during the Easter holiday period, seven fewer than last year, but police say the number is still too high.

Police roading national manager Superintendent Paula Rose told NZPA she would be happier if the road toll was zero, but police were striving for anything better than last year's horror Easter weekend when 12 people died.

"What I am happy with is that the deaths that took place were not the travellers who were going to and from holiday destinations," she said.

"The deaths over the weekend could have been on any weekend."

She said the fall in the death toll was due to police reducing speed tolerance and focusing on slow drivers.

Police also conducted over 70,000 breath tests, considerably higher than the usual 20,000 over a weekend.

Ms Rose said drink driver numbers were yet to be compiled as blood test results could take up to a number of weeks.

She said there was a "significant increase" in the number of officers on the roads, making sure police were visible.

The Easter holiday weekend began on Thursday at 4pm and ended today at 6am.

The first person killed during the period was 50-year-old Dwight Cram, who died on Saturday after his motorcycle and a vehicle towing a horse float crashed north of Wairoa, about 90km south of Gisborne.

Paul Philip Wilson, 21, who recently moved to Wellington from Auckland, was killed after an allegedly stolen car crashed early on Sunday, in the Wellington suburb of Johnsonville.

Three other people were injured in the crash, in which speed and alcohol were believed to have been factors.

A 19-year-old man was killed in a crash in Otago on Sunday morning after a vehicle left State Highway 83 at Otekaieke, 54km northwest of Oamaru.

He was Mitchell Thomas Clarke, a dairy worker from Duntroon, police said.

Mr Clarke died at the scene, and two other people had to be cut from the vehicle.

A 19-year-old man from Waitara died after the car he was in crashed into trees on State Highway 3 at Eltham, 50km south of New Plymouth, about 9pm on Sunday.

Two men were trapped in the vehicle. A second man, a 21-year-old from Eltham, was cut from the vehicle and taken to hospital with serious injuries.

Police believe excessive speed contributed to the crash. The serious crash unit is investigating.

Also on Sunday, a man died from injuries he received following a collision in Wellington on Saturday.

The man's motorbike and a car collided at the intersection of Victoria Street and Karo Drive.

- NZPA