With the holiday season on our doorstep, police are urging the public to take care on the roads in the form of a road safety campaign.
New Zealand Police and Waka Kotahi NZTA have a simple message for Kiwis : "Arrive alive – if you’re drinking, don’t drive."
National Road Policing Manager Acting Superintendent Gini Welch said police would be out and about patrolling during the summer.
She said the message wasn’t getting through to some people. But, “to many of us, it is getting through”.
“We’re really pleased to see that we are starting to see a decline in the number of deaths on our roads.”
But, things were still “really bad out there”, Welch said.
She said about 40 people still died on the roads each year during the summer, a trend that’s continued for the past three years.
Welch asked people to plan ahead before going out drinking, including organising a sober driver or a taxi.
For holiday road trips, she asked drivers to “plan for delays, plan for the heat, plan for tired and bored children in the back seat”.
For the past five years, about 400 people each year died on New Zealand's roads.
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