Road Rules Not Heeded

  • Mark Gosche
Transport

Motorists are still flouting basic rules of road safety and in doing so are keeping New Zealand’s road toll unacceptably high, Transport Minister Mark Gosche said today.

Mr Gosche was commenting on the Land Transport Safety Authority’s Ministerial briefing paper, released today along with the briefing papers of other Transport related agencies. The LTSA paper shows alcohol and/or speed contribute to almost half (45.8%) of all fatal crashes.

The paper also quotes a police estimate that 31% of those people involved in fatal crashes were not wearing a seatbelt.

The paper shows that in 1997 the number of road deaths per head of population meant New Zealand ranked 21st out of 28 OECD countries. If New Zealand had a rate comparable to Sweden, one of the countries with a good safety record, our road toll of 502 in 1998 would have only been 280, Mr Gosche said.

"While some of the reasons for this disparity are complex, a large part of the answer to lowering the toll comes down to three basic things: don’t drink and drive, don’t speed and always belt up."

Mr Gosche said this advice was particularly pertinent this month as January often saw many people on the road returning from holidays. Last January’s road toll was the worst in nearly a decade with 54 people killed in that one month alone.

The Ministry of Transport’s briefing paper notes that while New Zealand’s road toll has been steadily falling since 1987 in real numbers (despite an increase in traffic) it now appeared that trend was flattening out.

Mr Gosche said that this year the Government would be considering targets for road safety into the year 2010. A public consultation document would be released as part of that exercise.

Copies of Ministerial briefing papers of the following transport agencies are available from Melanie Vickers in the Minister of Transport’s Office, phone 04 471 9856.

Ministry of Transport
Land Transport Safety Authority
Civil Aviation Authority
Maritime Safety Authority
Transport Accident Investigation Commission
Transfund
Transit