O'Brien said people need to get out of the habit of using their phones while driving.
"Connect it to bluetooth or put it in glovebox and put it away.
"Unfortunately we are still seeing far too many people using their cellphones when they're driving and it completely distracts you from what you're doing and puts you at greater risk of hurting or killing yourself or another road user."
There was always an increase in crashes over the festive period but O'Brien agreed Covid-19 had made the year even longer for people.
"In Dec and January the crash risk does increase, people going away on unfamiliar roads that they may not have driven on before.
"Its been a long year for everybody in the country with Covid, so fatigue kicks in, travelling long distances, it's hot, people get impatient and then they make bad decisions, speeding or overtaking in really dangerous spots and it just puts themselves at a really high risk of killing themselves or somebody else."
Asked about their aim to reduce road deaths by 40 per cent by 2030, O'Brien said these tragic starts to the holiday period didn't help that.
"But rather than looking at the target look at what sits in behind those, and they're humans, they're families, they're uncles, sons, daughters so we really have to start thinking, these are people dying on the roads."
Police were actively patrolling the roads and would intervene when necessary but he said at the end of the day, the responsibility fell on the driver's shoulders.
"Ultimately this comes back to driver behaviour and drivers have the sole responsibility when they get into their car, for themselves, their passengers and other road users.
"It's pretty simple if you are going too fast and you do have to make a decision ... [where] you've got to stop ... those things don't go in your favour if you're going too fast."
He reminded people that although there were speed limits, there would also be times where people would have to adapt their driving to the conditions and travel below those speeds at times.
