Canterbury leads way on safety

By SCOTT MacLEOD transport reporter

The carnage is easing on Auckland and Canterbury highways - but most other regions are struggling in the war to slash the road toll.

The 72 deaths on Auckland roads last year made up the city's lowest tally since records began in 1965, and exactly one-third of the peak of 216 in 1987.

But Canterbury was the star performer, slicing the number of road deaths by half in just one year. Its 32 victims compared with 63 in 1999 and the best-previous year, 1998, when 56 people died. The region's worst year was 1986, when the toll hit 82.

Canterbury must be doing something right - but what?

Road safety chiefs in that region are praising police for their work with booze-buses. But they also point to better roads, better cars and better driving.

The Land Transport Safety Authority manager for Canterbury, Dennis Robertson, said 100,000 people were processed at a mobile booze bus last year, and a further 200,000 saw it working. Since the whole region had a population of just 400,000, he believed the high profile had scared many people out of drinking and driving.

"They set up outside Lancaster Park after big rugby matches and it's really in your face," he said. "I think that's the secret, in a way."

The head of Christchurch's strategic traffic unit, Senior Sergeant Gavin Herridge, said his officers were still catching drunk drivers but found that they were exceeding the limit by less than in the past.

On Friday, December 15, his booze bus stopped 5361 cars and found nine drunk drivers. A year earlier, 14 drunk drivers were found in 4000 vehicles stopped.

The other lesson in the southern city, he said, was the impact made by police working full-time on road safety. Since his unit was formed four years ago, staff had swelled from nothing to 30.

"The risk of getting caught is greater now," Senior Sergeant Herridge said. "We're starting to reap the crop we've sown."

The next campaign in Christchurch will use radars and hand-held lasers to hit speedsters.

Auckland's booze bus and dedicated road police have also helped save lives, although less dramatically than in Canterbury.

"Alcohol enforcement is definitely a factor here," said Land Transport Safety Authority regional manager Peter Kippenberger.

"But you've also got to credit community programmes, new roading systems like Alpurt [the Albany-to-Puhoi motorway] and the launch of highway patrols."

The biggest problem area in the upper North Island last year was Northland, where 47 died. That was just six less than the region's worst-recorded toll, 53 in 1989, and almost twice the 1997 low of 27.

Mr Kippenberger said much of the swing was due to the usual statistical fluctuations, but it was still frustrating.

Northland's community programmes were as good as anywhere's, but the region had many windy, hilly roads with few overtaking chances.

"I don't know that enforcement is the total answer up there - how many cops do you need to have an impact?

"There doesn't seem to be a magic bullet."

The coordinator at Road Safe Northland, Bill Rossiter, said 3000 leaflets sent to transport firms had helped slash the number of truck rollovers, but there remained a big problem with head-on smashes between cars.

The cause was probably a lack of passing lanes. Road managers were planning eight new passing lanes between Whangarei and Kawakawa.

Waikato also struggled last year. Its death tally was the worst in New Zealand - one reason a three-year hidden speed camera trial in the region was deemed to have failed.

However, Waikato's toll last year of 101 was only slightly more than usual for the region. From 1996, the death tallies have been 81, 98, 77 and 93 in 1999.

Driver licensing was one area where some progress was made in the Waikato. LTSA regional education adviser Fiona Craig said programmes aimed at Pacific Islanders and Maori were the most successful. In some places, whole communities had pledged to get their licences, such as in a rural township near Te Puke. Police in Ngaruawahia helped 4000 more people get their licences over the past 10 years.

But if road safety chiefs are to slash the road toll almost in half by 2010 - as they aim to do - they will have to find ways to save more lives in rural areas such as Waikato and Northland.

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