One person died on the roads this Queen's Birthday weekend, but police say it's one too many despite the lowest June long weekend road toll since 2013.
The official road toll started at 4pm on Friday June 3 and ended at 6am Tuesday.
One person was killed in a crash early on Saturday morning on the Waikato Expressway. Police were called to the scene on SH1, Hampton Downs at 1.25am, the person sadly died at the scene.
In 2021 and 2020, three people died on New Zealand roads over the same holiday period. In 2019 six died.
"That may seem like an improvement, but any death is too many," Superintendent Steve Greally, Director of the National Road Policing Centre, said in a statement.
"It’s not about numbers, these are lives lost, forever. Families facing forever without their loved ones. So instead of fixating on the numbers, let’s focus on everybody playing their part on being safe on the road. That means don’t drive impaired or distracted, slow down, buckle up, and arrive alive."
Another death, recorded in Canterbury on Sunday, where a seven-year-old boy was killed after the car he was in flipped into the Waipara River, was not counted in the road toll figure.
"That crash is not counted in the road toll, as it did not occur on a public road - the vehicle was off-road at the time of the crash," police said.
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