New Zealand 2022 road death toll on track to be worst in decade

This year is tracking toward having the highest roading death toll in more than a decade, writes Julia Gabel.

When 5-year-old Jaxx Hands sees a photo of his grandmother, he goes quiet. He used to say, "yay, Nana!" but now he walks away in silence.

His grandmother, 56-year-old Greymouth woman Kathy Sexton, is one of almost 300 people whose lives have been cut short this year by car crashes.

New Zealand is tracking towards having the highest roading death tolls in more than a decade with 296 deaths as of October 20. This is almost the same as this point in 2018 which, along with 2017, were the worst years since 2009.

Detailed year-to-date data is not available for 2017.

The Automobile Association (AA) says although New Zealand's road safety strategy is sound, the initiatives need to be rolled out faster and more extensively.

Four teenagers died on Queens Drive in Invercargill in April. Photo / George Heard

Meanwhile, government agencies say there is no "silver bullet" to addressing the country's road safety issues and if it weren't for the work done so far, the road fatality statistics would be worse.

This Labour Weekend, the head of the police's road safety syndicate has pleaded with people to slow down and stay alert on the road and a man who lost his mother in a crash this year has urged motorists to be patient and courteous this weekend.

An annual road toll is provisional until a few months after a year has ended, meaning it can change when more information on a crash comes to light.

Crash fatalities can be excluded from the toll in some circumstances, including if the crash was intentional or related to a medical event. Deaths that happen 30 days after a crash are not included in the toll.

This year is on track to be in line with 2018 and deaths to date are higher than the same point in the intervening three years.

Fewer died in 2020 and 2021 than 2018 and 2019, however, there were also fewer motorists on the road with people confined to their homes and neighbourhoods during Covid-19 lockdowns and the borders closed to visitors.

New Zealand’s deadliest year for road crashes was 1973. The population was 60 per cent of what it is today, and a staggering 843 people died on the roads.

Seatbelts had been required in the front seats of vehicles since 1965, however, wearing them was not compulsory until 1975.

The overall trend since 1973 has been downward and the Ministry of Transport has stressed the importance of taking the long-term trend into account as the crash statistics can have year-on-year variations.

‘The worst feeling in the world’

The call came in at midnight.

Greymouth man Damian Hands, 38, was alone in a Dunedin motel room, seven hours from home, when police at the end of the line told him his mother, Kathy Sexton, was dead.

She had been driving home from town after picking up takeaways with one of her grandsons, Hands' 14-year-old son, and his friend. A 66-year-old man has been charged with drink-driving causing death, and two counts of drink-driving causing injury.

The man, who was also badly injured in the crash, had a blood-alcohol count of 183ml — more than three times the legal limit.

"I just instantly had images of my mum … like a tunnel vision of thoughts of my mum."

Kathy Sexton was a devoted grandmother and a loved community member in Greymouth. Photo / Supplied

Hands called his sister, delivering news that would change her life forever. He called his partner, telling her to go to the hospital, where his seriously injured son was.

Then he drove through the night to get home, passing through the crash scene as he arrived back in Greymouth.

"I got through there around 7am and the police had just finished cleaning up."

Sexton, who lived in Ngahere near Greymouth, was loved by her community. She had worked at the local New World for almost 30 years and more than 100 people attended her memorial.

Almost six months on from her death, the pain of her loss and what she will miss out on remains as strong as ever for her family. Sexton did not know it - but she was also about to become a great-grandmother for the first time.

The Greymouth road where the crash that killed Kathy Sexton happened. Photo / Supplied

Hands, who drives past the crash site twice a day for work, said he gets upset looking at his youngest son, only a few months old, who will never meet his grandmother.

"It's the worst f****ing feeling in the world; just knowing that she could be here, but she's not because of someone's bad choices."

Damian Hands with this family (from left to right): Deakyn, baby Remy, Jaxx, Neo and wife Lucy. Photo / Supplied

Hands' older son, who was in the crash, has recovered physically but is affected by the trauma of trying to "wake Nana" after the collision.

"I could tell it's just going to be with him forever … He's a pretty tough kid and he tries not to show it but I know it's there."

Sexton's daughter, Emma, said she feels as though she has lost her best friend as well.

"Since she's passed, I've had a birthday and we had plans to do things for my birthday. It's been really horrible. Every day, when I wake up … I realise, she's still dead."

Emma Hands and her late mother Kathy. Photo / Supplied

Plea from police: ‘You cannot reverse death’

One of the deadliest road crashes in New Zealand history happened earlier this year. Seven family members, including an infant, were killed when their van hit a refrigerator truck south of Picton.

In April, four Southland teenagers died following a crash involving a ute and a concrete truck on one of Invercargill's main streets, and in May, four people, including an 8-month old, were killed in a collision in Bay of Plenty.

Director of the National Road Policing Centre Superintendent Steve Greally said he has had "an absolute gutsful" of the "needless carnage" on New Zealand roads.

He said speed was one of the main causes of death in a crash and if we reduced the mean speed across the roading network by 1km per hour, road trauma could be reduced by up to 5 per cent.

"In today's terms, that would equate to 16 lives saved."

As of October 20, 296 people have died on New Zealand roads, with 100km speed zones the locations of most of these fatal crashes. However, of course, there are many more stretches of road with 100km per hour limits than any other speed zone in New Zealand.

"You cannot reverse death; that's why we do what we do in police. That's why we're so passionate about enforcing speeds, even up to 10km over the limit.

"This Labour Day weekend, we will do everything we can to be visible, to hold people to account."

Over his two decades in the force, Greally has been tasked with telling someone their wife, husband, son, or daughter had been killed seven times.

Once, as a junior constable, a woman collapsed as he told her that her husband had died. He had rung her during his commute home to say he was tired and would take a break.

Another time, Greally sat outside a woman's house in his patrol car, watching her prepare dinner with her kids nearby, wondering if he should give her "five more minutes" of thinking her husband was okay.

"I thought to myself, 'her life seems perfect right now'."

New Zealand's national road safety strategy, Road to Zero, was launched in late 2019 and targets a 40 per cent reduction in road deaths and serious injuries by 2030, and to prevent them entirely by 2050, but we have a long way to go to get there.

Some of the strategy's initiatives include installing another 1000km of median crash barriers and 1700km of other safety infrastructures like rumble strips and roadside crash barriers.

National road policing manager Superintendent Steve Greally. Photo / File

Road to Zero director Bryan Sherritt said achieving the 40 per cent target required a concerted effort across communities.

There was no silver bullet solution and all elements of the system needed to be strengthened at the same time, including speeds, roading infrastructure and vehicle safety.

"We know, through research and evidence that interventions across these focus areas will have had a downward effect on the numbers of New Zealanders being killed or seriously injured on our roads.

"Yes, we need to do more and implement these interventions at an increased scale and pace, but without what has been done to date the tragic road safety statistics we are currently seeing in New Zealand would have been worse."

Of the $2.9 billion investment over the next three years, $1.2 billion will go toward road policing.

The Ministry of Transport believes, based on modelling, that just over half of the 2030 milestone could be achieved through infrastructure improvements, including speed limit changes, and a further 25 per cent by improving the safety of our vehicles.

The final 25 per cent, the ministry said, could be gained by interventions such as better driver licensing and increased penalties for safety offences.

The general manager of motoring affairs at the AA, Simon Douglas, said the national strategy was good and in line with international recommendations, but it was not being delivered quickly or as extensively enough.

The Road to Zero Annual Monitoring Report 2021 said just 50km of median barriers had been installed but that Waka Kotahi would "prioritise infrastructure investment and explore efficiencies to ramp-up the delivery of infrastructure treatments."

Seven people died after a van crashed into a truck on State Highway 1 south of Picton in June. Photo / NZH

A crash earlier in the year in Picton claimed the lives of seven family members. Photo / George Heard

Douglas said addressing driver behaviour was also crucial to reducing road deaths – whether that was drivers distracted by their cell phones or something outside, driving while impaired by drugs or alcohol or tired, or not wearing their seatbelt.

"At a personal level, crashes are very rare events. Most of us drive our entire lives without being involved so … we can often think the messages coming out from police don't apply to [us]," Douglas said.

"Most of us get away with a moment's distraction or not wearing a seatbelt or driving too fast for the conditions … we get away with it more times than it catches us, until we don't."

Waka Kotahi Road to Zero portfolio manager Tara Macmillan said this year had been a "tough one with respect to road safety" and a huge amount of work was underway as part of Road to Zero.

That included speed reductions, such as the State Highway 6 Blenheim to Nelson where 20 people died between 2009 and 2018. Nineteen of these deaths happened in areas with a 100km/h speed limit.

"What you've seen us do over the past few years is that where we've reduced speeds, fatalities have decreased.

Where infrastructure like median barriers had been installed, head-on collisions had been avoided, she said.

"We fundamentally believe deaths and serious injuries are avoidable. We've got a long way to go to make that reality, but what this year continues to reinforce is how important Road to Zero is and the role that everyone plays as part of that.

Almost six months after his mother's death, Hands said he wants harsher penalties for reckless, distracted and repeated drink drivers, and to address the normalised behaviour of driving home after a beer at the pub.

He has also urged people heading away this weekend to be patient, careful and courteous to others on the road – and to not drink and drive.

“It’s just devastating because it can be stopped. That road toll can come down if the right steps are taken.”