Tragically 11 people's families are now grieving after losing loved ones in a horrific Queen’s Birthday Weekend on the roads.
The provisional road toll stands at 11 deaths from eight crashes, which occurred in Southern, Canterbury, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Wellington, Auckland and Northland Police districts over the long weekend.
“The sad part is that crashes like this are preventable, and to see another 11 families left devastated in this way is incredibly sad,” says National Manager Road Policing, Superintendent Steve Greally.
“As far as Police is concerned, any death or injury is one too many, and everyone needs to be doing their part to reduce deaths and injuries on our roads.
“Police will continue to do everything we can to ensure the message gets to those who need to hear it – if only to prevent another crash from occurring – but this responsibility also lies in the hands of every road user.”
The official Queen's Birthday weekend period began at 4pm on Friday 3 June and ended 6am on Tuesday 7 June.
Mr Greally says Police had a highly visible and active presence on the road across the country over the weekend, focusing on high risk driving behaviour using a mixture of prevention and enforcement activities.
“Police’s prime responsibility is to ensure the safety of all road users, and this includes working with our road safety partners to both educate and enforce safe road user behaviour. As with other long weekends, we focussed on speed and those driving too fast for the conditions, as well as seatbelt non-compliance, cellphone use and driving while impaired, as these are the high risk behaviours that we know continue to kill and injure far too many of us on the roads.
“But we cannot be everywhere and we cannot do it alone,” he says. “We need the public's help to keep the roads safe. There has already been a high number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads this year, leaving a devastating impact on a number of families and communities. We want to stop that from happening to other families.
"Not all roads are created equal – many of New Zealand’s roads are unforgiving and leave no room for mistakes. The icy and foggy weather conditions that were experienced in various places around the country this weekend are why we encourage everyone to drive to the conditions. This means reducing your speed and extending your following distance, particularly in the wet and where there is reduced visibility.”
New Zealand's worst ever Queen's Birthday Weekend on the roads was in 1973, when 24 were killed. "Thankfully we've come a very long way since then and the prevention and education approach that Police has taken towards road safety has led to a significant reduction in road related trauma, but there is still clearly more that all of us can do to reduce this further," Mr Greally says.
ENDS
Issued by Police Media Centre