Northland's top road cop despairs at rising road toll

Northland's top traffic cop Inspector Wayne Ewers is frustrated safe driving messages aren't getting through with four road deaths so far in Northland this year.

Wayne Ewers has a tone of disappointment and frustration in his voice

Northland's top traffic cop fears that a horror 2017 on Northland's roads - where 40 people died - will be repeated or exceeded this year, with crashes on the region's roads so far in 2018 claiming four lives.

The latest death was Kerry Louise Love, of Whangarei, who died in hospital on Monday after she was involved in a crash on Ngunguru Rd on January 18.

At the same stage last year three people had died on Northland's roads and Mr Ewers is in despair over simple road safety messages continuing to be ignored by drivers in the region. If the currant rate continued there could be close to 50 road deaths by the end of this year.

Mr Ewers said one of the most frustrating things about the road toll was that most deaths are preventable if motorists stick to the basic safety rules.

''The messages are the same as last year and the years before that, watch your speed, drive to the conditions, wear your seat belts and don't drink and drive,'' he said.

He said some of it could be complacency.

''People need to be patient and slow down on our roads. We are seeing time and time again that people are not driving to the conditions. If the weather's not great, slow down. Even if the weather is hot the roads can get very sticky so people need to then be looking at the way they are driving. And sadly sometimes the roads people are most familiar with are the ones that people are getting into grief on and dying.

''Most of these crashes are preventable by people simply driving to the conditions and being more patient.''

Mr Ewers said it was frustrating that the constant road safety messages were not getting through, as evidenced by the nature of some people's driving on our roads.

He said family members and friends needed to step up to prevent more tragedies on Northland's roads by making sure their loved ones were obeying the road rules and were strapped in properly.

''Also we've got more long holiday weekends coming up so there's going to be a lot more people on our roads, so we all need to take more care.''