Heavy road toll for long weekend

For the long weekend, drivers were given a speeding ticket if caught driving at more than 4km/h above the limit, rather than the usual 10km/h. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Police say they are "devastated" by the Labour Weekend road toll, which closed this morning at eight - the same number as last year.

But despite the deaths, police still believe driving has improved markedly.

The toll reached eight with the death of a motorcyclist on State Highway 1 near Balclutha yesterday afternoon. The holiday period finished at 6am today.

National road policing manager Superintendent Paula Rose said yesterday before the latest death that all the other fatal crashes were avoidable.

"They all involved either speed, alcohol or crossing the centre line, the very things that we have been urging drivers to take particular care with."

Yet police had received 20 per cent fewer complaints from the public about unsafe driving. And the number of reported crashes since the official holiday period began at 4pm on Friday stood at 221 at 5pm yesterday - a reduction of more than 25 per cent on the same period last year.

"This is a very strong indication [that] overall the roads are safer, but this will be cold comfort to the families and friends of those ... people who lost their lives this weekend."

Mrs Rose was unable to explain the apparent disconnection between the death and crash trends - trends which both went in the same direction, down, at Queen's Birthday Weekend.

"At Queen's Birthday, we had a big reduction in fatalities - 10 the previous year, one this year - and a 23 per cent reduction in crashes."

She said that despite the eight deaths since Friday afternoon, most drivers had responded well to the police messages on safe driving.

"We may have lost this battle to stop people dying needlessly on the roads but the war will continue."

For the long weekend, drivers were given a speeding ticket if caught driving at more than 4km/h above the limit, rather than the usual 10km/h.

"The feedback from staff is that speeds on the network have been slower," Mrs Rose said. "Traffic is flowing in a calmer and more controlled way, although we still have had some idiots out there, people driving at excessive speeds or drinking."

The main picture on drink-driving had been good, she said, with only low numbers picked up at breath-testing checkpoints and none at a number of high-volume checkpoints.

Travellers returning to Auckland faced heavy traffic or queues at the usual choke-points.

Vehicles queued during the afternoon for several kilometres on the Coromandel Peninsula side of the single-lane, lights-controlled Kopu Bridge just south of Thames, where the temperature reached 22C.

But Transport Agency spokesman Ewart Barnsley said that by evening, the bridge was "pretty clear".

"I'm not aware of any queues, except around Maramarua on State Highway 2. [The traffic] is pretty heavy around there. It's heavy through Dome Valley; the traffic is moving.

"The motorways into Auckland are fairly heavy, but the traffic is moving at motorway speeds.

"State Highway 16, our alternative route for traffic coming back and going to the city from up north, is pretty clear. It seems most people are preferring to use State Highway 1 to get back into Auckland."

Meanwhile, a motorcyclist was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries after being thrown from his bike on a beach south of Auckland.

The man was catapulted from his bike after striking a hard mound of sand on Saturday while travelling along Karioitahi Beach, about 70km southwest of downtown Auckland.

He suffered serious head injuries and broken ribs.

Holiday victims

* Yesterday: Motorcyclist killed on State Highway 1 south of Balclutha in Otago.

* Sunday: Harmony Wihongi, 16, killed after the ute she was in left the road near Westport. The driver fled and was later arrested for drink-driving.

* Sunday: Two people died when a car crashed into a power pole near Huntly.

* Sunday: A 74-year-old woman passenger died when the car she was in collided with a Subaru on a gravel road near Wanganui.

* Sunday: A truck driver died in a crash near Kaikoura.

* Saturday: Jessie McKenzie Lineham, 20, died after her car collided with a Holden in rural Southland.

* Friday: One person died in a head-on collision in southern Hawkes Bay.