Despite this year's lockdowns and minimal tourists on the road, New Zealand's unwavering road toll remained "disappointingly" high in 2020.
At 320 deaths, the 2020 toll is still 32 less than last year's. However, if you take into account the weeks with limited travel during the April lockdown and the subsequent Auckland lockdown it would be en route to being slightly higher than 2019.
Only three years in the past decade have had less than 300 deaths on their annual road toll, but road safety experts had hoped this year would be the next.
"If you take the April lockdown out of the equation, that accounts for all the difference between 2020 and the previous year," AA motoring affairs general manager Mike Noon said.
"Road deaths for the other 11 months of the year have been slightly more than 2019, which is a very sad and disappointing result."
The road toll already matches the number killed over the entire Christmas and New Years period from last year. (Source: Other)
Border closures are thought to have been part of the reason this year's road toll remained high — while less foreigners were visiting New Zealand shores there have been more Kiwis returning than ever.
Noon says the number of expats returning over the winter period was larger than the number of tourists that would otherwise be holidaying here, which could be linked to higher-than-normal traffic on the roads.
Increasing alcohol testing, more maintenance to high-risk roads and improving road safety support for youth are among the list of things the AA would like to see done by the Government to improve the road toll statistics.
Six people died on New Zealand roads in six separate crashes in recent days. (Source: Other)
Annual road deaths in recent years:
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