‘We’re just not improving’: Hawke’s Bay’s annual road toll for 2022 revealed

The memorial for 26-year-old Raymond Nicholas Tairua-Gray, in place for five months now after his death. He was one of 14 road fatalities in Hawke's Bay in 2022. Photo / Warren Buckland

Hawke’s Bay road policing manager Inspector Matt Broderick says too many families are “absolutely destroyed” as a result of preventable road deaths.

In Hawke’s Bay, there were another 14 deaths on the roads in 2022.

“We’re just not improving. The numbers fluctuate slightly each year,” Broderick said.

“If you average them all out, you’ll be in about the 15-17 bracket, and if you look back, you’ll see it is similar all the way back to about 2013. The higher speed roads, 80km/h-and-above roads, are where you are more likely to die because you are going faster.”

Previously, there were nine deaths on Hawke’s Bay roads in 2021, 22 deaths in 2020, 18 deaths in 2019 and 15 deaths in 2018.

Of the 14 deaths in 2022, none were pedestrians or cyclists.

Five victims were aged 20 to 24, three were aged 25 to 39, four were aged 40 to 59 and two were over 60.

Broderick said the entire Eastern District, which also includes Tairāwhiti, was fourth in road deaths despite having a relatively small population.

“Per 10,000-population, we perform really badly, so we must be performing really badly on our roads,” he said.

“Just think how many families are absolutely destroyed by the loss of a close member - and we are not a big community, either.”

He said police were making an effort in 2023 to be highly visible on high-speed roads, and people should not expect the police to be tolerant when they are speeding.

Keremia Tairua with a picture of her son Ray.

Keremia Tairua’s son, Raymond Nicholas Tairua-Gray, was one of the 14 people who died on Hawke’s Bay roads in 2022.

His car left Ford Rd, Onekawa, just after 9.45pm on August 2, 2022, and ended up on its roof in a waterway.

Tairua said she felt the standard of driving in Hawke’s Bay was “shocking”, and some boy racer crews “need a kick up the a***.”

She is in support of finding places to provide safe, regulated environments for cars that were warranted to be raced and do skids.

“I would like to see a bit more involvement from older folks, rather than sitting at home worrying about their kids doing squealies and wheelies.”

Ray's Holden Commodore, pictured after being pulled from the creek next to Ford Rd.

She was also still trying to get Napier City Council to install barriers between the road and waterway where Ray died.

“There are a lot of barriers around the road where Ray crashed, but there is a gap where you can just drive straight through and into the canal if you didn’t know there was a corner there.”

The Hawke’s Bay Today approached Napier City Council for comment, but they were unable to respond in time for publication.

2022 was the year that Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency controversially introduced the speed limit reduction on a stretch of State Highway 5 from Napier to Taupō.

The speed limit on 76 kilometres of State Highway 5, from Esk Valley to Rangitaiki Plains, was lowered from 100km/h to 80km/h on February 18, 2022.

It was part of a Road to Zero strategy to cut the annual number of road fatalities nationwide by 40 per cent by 2030 and to eliminate the toll by 2050.

Data from Waka Kotahi’s road traffic crash database shows there was one fatal crash on State Highway 5, Napier to Taupō in 2022, and eight serious injury crashes.

There was a lull in 2021, a quiet year for crashes in Hawke’s Bay overall, with no fatal crashes and only five serious injury crashes on the Napier-Taupō stretch of State Highway 5.

There were four fatal crashes and six serious injury crashes in 2020, and two fatal crashes and 11 serious injury crashes in 2019.

A Waka Kotahi spokesperson said the amount of traffic on the roads during Level 4 lockdowns was greatly reduced, which consequently reduced the number of road crashes, and there would have been a similar reduction in traffic volume from the Orange and Red levels of the traffic light system which would affect trends.

Broderick said local police did not seem to be attending as many fatal crashes on that stretch of State Highway 5 since the speed limit reduction.

“80km/h - no matter what you say, if you are travelling at those sorts of speeds, you have got a higher chance of survival.”

He said police began to put more units on State Highway 5 and patrol it more vigorously in 2020 after it had one of its worst periods for road deaths.

“We increased the number of people we were stopping, we increased the number of infringements that we gave out, and as a consequence of it, we saw some differences.”

“From October 1, 2019, to October 30, 2020, there were eight deaths and three serious crashes [on State Highway 5]. The following year there were still serious crashes, but no deaths.”