Rotorua Daily Post
  • Rotorua Daily Post home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Residential property listings
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Rural
  • Sport

Locations

  • Tauranga
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Tokoroa
  • Taupō & Tūrangi

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales

Weather

  • Rotorua
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Tokoroa
  • Taupō

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Rotorua Daily Post

Garth George: Road toll unlikely to get lower

Rotorua Daily Post
27 Jan, 2015 08:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

HBT134421-07.JPG Hawke's Bay Road Policing check point on the Waimarama Road near red bridge on Wednesday 1st January 2014. Reporter: Doug Laing Photographer: Glenn Taylor NEWS

HBT134421-07.JPG Hawke's Bay Road Policing check point on the Waimarama Road near red bridge on Wednesday 1st January 2014. Reporter: Doug Laing Photographer: Glenn Taylor NEWS

Not before time the police seem to have altered their modus operandi in promoting road safety by taking the emphasis off speed and drink-driving.

In a 24-hour, 84-checkpoint police road safety blitz in central Auckland on Wednesday police teams issued more than 640 fines to motorists in central Auckland.

They included 103 for speeding, 63 for not wearing seatbelts, 85 for running red lights or not stopping at intersections, 177 for licence breaches, 72 for using mobile phones and six drink-drivers. And eighteen vehicles were impounded.

As well, according to a New Zealand Herald report, one driver was over the legal alcohol limit, and 34 were just under it.

A large police presence across the Auckland central region throughout the day and late into the night stopped cars at busy intersections in both residential and commercial areas of the city.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Now that's a big improvement surely on the "booze bus" system that has been the emphasis for yonks.

It is no doubt just one result of the continuing controversy which has arisen since the holiday road toll came in an 17 - more than double the previous year's tally; and the 2014 annual toll at 297 deaths, up 43 on 2013.

Most of the argument has been over the police move to eliminate the 4km/h holiday speed tolerance to zero. And as far as I'm concerned this is a dangerous thing to do.
Because I believe that the biggest cause of road accidents, fatal or otherwise (next to stupidity, of course), is inattention. Setting the speed limit at an exact figure surely encourages drivers to constantly glance at the speedometer, and at 100km/h taking one's eyes off the road for even a split second is highly dangerous.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Not all cars are fitted with speed warning beepers and I suspect that most of those in Japanese imports have been turned off.

The same goes for tuning a radio, eating and/or drinking, admonishing children or arguing with passengers - and any number of other distractions, all of which can kill.
As for stupidity, we read almost every day in the press about drivers and passengers who do idiotic things, one of the latest of which was to allow a small child to sit on the roof of a moving car with his legs dangling down through the sunroof.
But back to the road toll. I believe we have reached an absolute minimum of road deaths each year - between 200 and 300 - and we will never see it any lower.

When you set the road toll against the billions of kilometres travelled each year by every form of road transport, much of them on substandard roads, and driven by hundreds of thousands of drivers of varying competence, last year's road toll comes out as an infinitesimal - indeed immeasurable - fraction of a per cent of vehicle/kilometres.

But that is no reason to let up on the education campaigns undertaken each year by the police and Land Transport Authority and the close attention to driving offences paid by the police.

Because they do work. In the 1980s road deaths numbered between 766 and 599; in the 1990s that dropped to between 729 and 501; in the first decade of this century it came down to between 462 and 384; and in the first four years of this decade to between 375 and 208.

As the figures show, altering public perceptions takes a long time and it seems it has happened to road safety slowly but surely over the past 35 years.
However, I very much doubt that the road toll will get much lower, no matter how much time, imagination and energy are put into road safety campaigns.

The stupid and mindless with always be with us. They are the ones who remain victims of the deep-seated human psychological deception which tells them: "I'm different" and "It can't happen to me".

Garth George is a veteran newspaper journalist, retired and living in Rotorua.Email him at garth.george@hotmail.com

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Rotorua Daily Post

Rotorua Daily Post

Caught on tape: Identity finally revealed of Jaguar-driving teen behind CBD rampage

06 Jul 06:00 AM
Rotorua Daily Post

'He's just scared of me': Teen's Māori wards challenge to PM

06 Jul 03:55 AM
Rotorua Daily Post

'Safety risks': Concerns as hospital security guards double as cleaners

05 Jul 10:45 PM

There’s more to Hawai‘i than beaches and buffets – here’s how to see it differently

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Rotorua Daily Post

Caught on tape: Identity finally revealed of Jaguar-driving teen behind CBD rampage

Caught on tape: Identity finally revealed of Jaguar-driving teen behind CBD rampage

06 Jul 06:00 AM

Police and footpath pedestrians had to dodge the vehicle to avoid getting run over.

'He's just scared of me': Teen's Māori wards challenge to PM

'He's just scared of me': Teen's Māori wards challenge to PM

06 Jul 03:55 AM
'Safety risks': Concerns as hospital security guards double as cleaners

'Safety risks': Concerns as hospital security guards double as cleaners

05 Jul 10:45 PM
Bid for inquiry into Ōhinemutu sewage spills fails

Bid for inquiry into Ōhinemutu sewage spills fails

05 Jul 06:00 PM
From early mornings to easy living
sponsored

From early mornings to easy living

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Rotorua Daily Post e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Rotorua Daily Post
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP