KEY POINTS:
Motorists returning home yesterday after the Easter break suffered frustrating waits in traffic congestion around the North Island.
Police were issuing regular warnings about the congestion and urging holidaymakers not to take risks in a bid to get home a little earlier.
Traffic tails had mounted on all the major roads in and out of Auckland by the afternoon and lasted well into the evening. A tail reaching up to 1km heading south at Wellsford, just north of Auckland, was one of the worst traffic jams in the region.
State Highway 16 was being suggested as an alternative route for motorists travelling between Auckland and further north.
Traffic heading south on State Highway 1 at Karapiro in Waikato was bumper to bumper but flowing.
On State Highway 25 on the Coromandel side of Kopu bridge, the traffic tail was estimated at 2km long.
State Highway 2 westbound by Mangatawhiri was travelling between 10 and 20 km/h yesterday afternoon.
However, all Auckland motorways were reportedly flowing freely.
A number of nose-to-tails have caused chaos at Levin. Traffic was backed up in both directions north of Wellington at Otaki.
Transit New Zealand operations manager Joseph Flanagan said motorists heading home on Sunday and yesterday had been well-behaved.
"This [Easter] has been a good weekend. Across the two days drivers have shown a lot of patience."
The Transit call centre had received a few calls from motorists asking about the hold-ups but no more than usual, Mr Flanagan said.
An 18-year-old student living at Grafton university hall told the Herald she was caught in slow traffic for about 48km between Paeroa and Maramarua while trying to get home after staying in Rotorua and Tauranga with her parents for the weekend.
"It was really slow. It was bumper to bumper, stopping and starting heaps. We were stationary quite a lot and when we started moving it was no more than 20 kilometres at the most."
Despite the congestion there were few serious crashes yesterday.
One woman suffered leg injuries after she crashed into a power pole near Waipukurau, 50km southwest of Hastings, early yesterday morning.
A total of eight people died on New Zealand roads over the Easter weekend, two more than last year.
The period officially ended at 6am this morning.
According to police statistics, the eight people who died included two drivers, five passengers and a motorcyclist.
Paige Patricia Timothy, 16, died on Thursday after the stolen car she was a passenger in hit a tree during a police pursuit in Christchurch.
Motorcyclist Graham Livemore, 27, died at Glenfield when the stolen motorcycle he was riding smashed into a brick wall on Eskdale Rd in Glenfield shortly before 4am on Good Friday.
Four Chinese died when their rental car crashed head-on into another vehicle at Clevedon. They were: Wilson Wing Fung Ha, 33, Lai Chun Yip, 61, Kong Hoi Ng, 59, Sze Lui Ng, 25.
Hurunui man Henry Maxwell Croft, 18, died on State Highway 7, when his car crashed into a rock face at Frog Rock, north of Christchurch.
On Saturday, a 32-year-old Australian tourist died on the South Island's West Coast after a head-on smash on State Highway 7, east of Greymouth.
