Police are urging motorists to take care as traffic builds ahead of the Easter break.
By Jessica Swan
Police say there have already been a number of serious motor vehicle incidents across Auckland as holiday-makers depart.
Superintendent Steve Greally told 1News there were nine deaths last Easter, the highest since 2010 when 12 people died.
As Director of the National Road Policing Centre at NZ Police, he says these numbers are “horrific” and can be avoided.
Police want people to be safe on the roads. (Source: 1News)
“When you think about the word toll it sort of implies it’s a price we have to pay for having a roading network. Well, that's absolutely fundamentally incorrect.”
However, when accidents happen, everyone ends up bearing the cost – including police, fire and ambulance staff.
“We don’t want to have to go to those crashes, and don’t also want to also have to go to somebody’s home and tell them their loved one has died. That’s a really really tough thing to prepare our people for.”
This comes as the Road to Zero campaign hits two years since launching, a strategy to help eliminate road deaths or serious injuries.
One of the safety partners, Waka Kotahi, is expecting roads to be very busy over the next few days, encouraging people to check the journey planner on their website.
When travelling these routes, police are also reminding people the standards that qualified them for their drivers licence have not changed.
“Just because you've got a licence and don’t have a testing officer next to you doesn’t mean you have the license to go and be idiot on our roads," says Greally.
He says the advice from police is to try plan ahead, take an extra day off for travel and remember to stay calm even with congestion.
Greally emphasised the basics, asking people to “stay off your phone, keep your seatbelt on, and for god sakes if you're drinking you're not bloody driving.”
The road toll began 4pm Thursday and as of publishing, there were no deaths so far.
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