KEY POINTS:
Without wishing to tempt fate, it's good to see that the New Year's Eve riots appear to be a thing of the past. Police around the country reported relatively quiet New Year's Eves.
Even in that notorious trouble spot, Mt Maunganui, where a couple of hundred people will begin the New Year with a court appearance and a fine, the arrests were mainly liquor ban breaches rather than arrests for fighting or rioting.
It was so quiet in Taupo that the local cops are thinking of cancelling their practice of hiring a marquee that, in the past, has been used to process hundreds of alcohol-fuelled oiks.
And - surprise, surprise - the police commissioner credits liquor bans and an increased police presence on the streets as the reason for improved behaviour.
By coming down hard on young revellers in the past few years, the police have made the job of crowd control much easier this year. The young ones know the cops mean business and are less inclined to go looking for trouble, and the holiday resorts have been reclaimed by families and those who believe a good time doesn't necessarily involve getting wasted and/or getting into a fight. There will always be idiots and I guess even the most vigilant policing can't protect you from them.
I only hope the 15-year-old moron who killed 13-year-old Daisy Fernandez and left her friend seriously injured realises the damage he's done.
He was quoted in the New Zealand Herald as saying he'd thought he'd hit a log when he was hooning up the beach on his motocross bike without a headlight.
When asked if he blamed himself for the accident, he was ambivalent - "Yes and no - I ran her over".
Yes. You did. And you killed her. And you've caused serious and life-long injury to another young girl because you believed you could do what you wanted without any care for anyone else on the beach.
You were told by a number of people to slow down and you ignored them. You believed your right to get your jollies by riding a motorbike fast trumped the right of young people to gather on the beach to welcome in the New Year.
It's not a game. You can't go back to the beginning because you wiped out. The person you killed doesn't get up and walk away.
Because you were stupid and careless, the Fernandez family, who should have been planning Daisy's 14th birthday on Friday, were instead planning her funeral. A beautiful girl with a promising future - and you killed her.
There shouldn't be any ambivalence. It was you and your carelessness and your arrogance that killed her. She is never coming back and you need to acknowledge the terrible damage you have caused.
