New Zealand has bounced back from a high Christmas and New Year holiday road toll with one of the lowest January tolls in many years – with no fatalities in Hawke's Bay.
According to Ministry of Transport online statistics, the provisional road toll for January is 16, of which two were in the Christmas-New Year holiday period when 11 people died nationwide, the most in the holiday period in four years.
The toll of 16 is thought to have been the country's lowest January toll in more than 50 years, two less than the 18 in 2013, less than half the January 2018 toll of 36, five less than the January 2020 toll of 21, and just over a quarter of the all-time January high of 62 in 1987.
The lowest monthly toll in more than 50 years was the nine in April last year, during the Covid-19 Level 4 alert lockdown.
The only fatality last month in the police Eastern District, which includes, Wairoa, Napier, Hastings and Central Hawke's Bay, happened with just 12 hours of the month left when a person died after a single-vehicle crash northwest of Gisborne about 11.40am on Sunday.
