Speed crackdown is the ticket - police

Auckland Motorway Police Senior Constable Kathryn Weavers at work. Photo / Doug Sherring

A holiday weekend crackdown on speeding may be extended across the year after a big drop in accidents and deaths.

National road policing manager Superintendent Paula Rose said last night the measures put in place this weekend could become permanent if they helped keep the road toll down.

The crackdown came after police announced there would be just 5km/h tolerance for drivers exceeding the speed limit.

By 6pm last night there had been 116 crashes across the country compared with 144 the year before, including two which claimed five lives.

A woman this morning became this year's first Queen's Birthday Weekend fatality following a crash near Tokomaru Bay north of Gisborne.

The toll for the full Queen's Birthday Weekend last year was 10 dead - the highest in 13 years.

Commissioner Howard Broad also said the 5km/h tolerance could be expanded. "We might try it again on another weekend or we might try it for a two-week period nationally," he told One News.

Broad was back on the beat last night, at a checkpoint in Upper Riccarton, Christchurch.

He said publicity about the blitz had worked: "The question is, will those who are most at risk have their driver behaviour changed?"

Broad said there was a "sizeable group" of people who travelled over the speed limit, with 17 to 24-year-old males over-represented.

Rose said police were aiming for a "fatality-free weekend" but conceded it was a "bold, bold aim".

"We will make the decision about the next holiday weekend depending on how it works. The intention is not to catch people speeding, but getting motorists to slow down. It's to stop people dying," she said.

Rose said the number of speeding tickets handed out would not be known until next week but anecdotal evidence suggested it was "not many".

Alcohol checkpoints have also failed to yield high numbers of drink-drivers. Preliminary data revealed Auckland police stopped more than 1500 vehicles and caught just 24 drink-drivers on Friday night. Other centres had stopped up to 350 cars without finding a drink-driver.

Last night road policing bosses across the country had the same story to tell about their districts - no major crashes and good driver behaviour.

Auckland road policing manager Inspector Gavin McDonald said: "The limit is the limit and we should be aiming for as lower tolerance as possible. Every kilometre we drop we're saving 4 per cent in crashes," he said.

"People need to realise it's not them versus the police, it's them against the grim reaper."

Auckland motorways unit Sergeant Jeffery Gerbich, who worked Friday and Saturday nights, said people were sticking to about 95km/h in the city.

In Northland, Inspector Clifford Paxton said traffic on state highways was travelling "100-103km/h". The official period for the weekend road toll runs from 4pm on Friday to 6am on Tuesday.