KEY POINTS:
Thirty more people died on the roads last year than in 2006.
If the deaths continue at current levels, police say their goal of fewer than 300 fatalities by 2010 will be hard to reach.
The road toll for 2007 stood at 422 last night, up from 392 in 2006.
"We're really back to where we were in 04-05," said the national operations manager for road policing support, Inspector Carey Griffiths.
He attributed the increase to more people and vehicles but also to "middle New Zealanders" taking risks with speeding and drink-driving, and to high-risk repeat offenders.
While the toll was up, deaths per capita and per 10,000 vehicles were at historically low levels, Mr Griffiths said. "It's not all doom and gloom."
In 1987, 797 people died on the roads - equal to 23.8 per 100,000 people, or 3.9 per deaths per 10,000 vehicles.
"In real terms, if we were killing people at the rate we were in 1987, we could expect a road toll of around 1100 today," Mr Griffiths said.
The country's worst year for fatalities (843) was 1973. That equated to 27.9 deaths per 100,000 people, or 5.9 deaths per 10,000 vehicles.
Last year's toll was the equivalent of 9.4 deaths per 100,000 people, or 1.3 deaths per 10,000 vehicles.
"Anywhere in the 400s is a big improvement but our 2010 target is no more than 300, and at the rate we're going we will struggle to reach that number," Mr Griffiths said.
The "fatal five" - speed, alcohol and drugs, failure to wear restraints, careless/dangerous driving (including fatigue and inattention), and high-risk driving by recidivist offenders - continued to be significant contributors.
He said NZ had a high speed limit considering most roads were not divided, and the driver alcohol limit was high at 80mg per 100ml of blood.
Mr Griffiths said research showed that OECD countries which had lowered their limit to 50mg, including Australia, had achieved a significant cut in road fatalities.
Failure to wear seatbelts was still seen in a high proportion of fatal road crashes, particularly those involving drunk drivers.
And careless and dangerous driving, such as speeding, cutting across the centre line, and failure to drive to the conditions, also played a major part.
"We've still got too many people prepared to take chances," Mr Griffiths said.
As well as drivers who intentionally took risks, there were those who were inattentive. Fatigue resulted in 40 road deaths and more than 1000 serious injuries last year.
Driver distractions, including cellphones, cigarettes, fiddling with car stereos, eating and talking to passengers, were also a problem.
The last category was recidivists who persisted in driving while disqualified, highly intoxicated, or at extreme speeds - "people who just simply won't comply", Mr Griffiths said.
But while that group posed a significant risk, they were not large in number, and a greater proportion of the population engaged in careless/dangerous driving that put themselves and others at risk.
"There's a lot of middle New Zealand in there who drive a bit quick, who drive a bit drunk, and they are the ones who are most involved in crashes, simply because there's a lot more of them."
Mr Griffiths said most people involved in crashes were males in their mid or late 20s with breath alcohol readings of about 600mcg per litre of breath.
