Minister pledges to get tough on roads mayhem

Transport Safety Minister Harry Duynhoven last night promised the Government would consider stronger penalties for dangerous driving after a day on which more New Zealanders were maimed and killed on the roads.

The death of a woman passenger in a car that crashed at Mamaku, near Rotorua, took the holiday road toll to 11, the same figure for the entire holiday period last year. Police predict that another nine people could lose their lives before the festive season officially ends at 6am next Wednesday, January 4.

Mr Duynhoven said the toll was "disappointing".

"The alternative to people behaving well voluntarily is to have stronger penalties when they don't."

He said New Zealand drivers had to change their entrenched and aggressive driving habits.

"There's certainly an element of New Zealand drivers that do have a lack of patience and a lack of courtesy towards other drivers. That goes both ways: those who don't pull over when they're driving slowly ... and the group behind them who are impatient as can be and take stupid risks."

He would not say what stronger penalties would be looked at, just that there were "a number of possibilities".

The penalties relating to general driving behaviour were last changed in 1999, when some financial penalties more than tripled.

Dangerous drivers face up to five years' jail, a $20,000 fine and disqualification for a year if they cause injury or death.

The car in which the woman died yesterday crashed into a bank on State Highway 5 north of Rotorua. A 26-year-old Auckland woman received moderate facial and chest injuries and the driver received minor injuries.

Earlier, six people were injured when two cars crashed head-on at Waitua Bridge on State Highway 27, near Matamata. Four had to be cut from the cars, and two men were flown by Westpac air ambulance to Waikato Hospital with critical and serious injuries. The Tauranga-based Trustpower TECT rescue helicopter transported a 37-year-old man, and the other injured parties were taken by road.

And at 3.30pm, two cars racing on Auckland's Northwestern Motorway caused an accident that sent a taxi hurtling into the path of a bus, injuring the taxi driver and his passenger.

National road policing manager, Superintendent Dave Cliff, said it would not surprise him if the holiday toll reached 20.

"If people continue to drive when they are tired, drive drunk, exceed speed limits, tailgate other vehicles - all those sorts of behaviours that kill people - then we are looking at a horrific tragedy in terms of the numbers killed."

If the prediction comes true, the final toll will rival the bad years of 2000 and 2001, when it reached 21 and 22.

Mr Cliff said that for every fatal car accident there were around 10 injury accidents. "There's a massive human toll to these crashes well beyond the deaths. It's also this vast number of people who are already sitting in hospitals with head injuries, amputations, spinal injuries.

"These are the sorts of injuries that don't go away. You don't get better after you have had an arm removed."

Mr Cliff said the same central themes were coming through in the crashes: drink-driving, speed and not wearing seatbelts.

Most people heeded the safety message but there was a dangerous "sociopathic" group of around 5 per cent of the population who did not care about others.

"The critical thing you can do for your own safety is keep your speed down."

Mr Cliff said police were looking forward to using new laws which apply from January 16 and are tougher on drink-driving and speeding.

Police will be able to suspend driving licences at the roadside for 28 days for people who exceed the speed limit by 40km/h, or who have a blood-alcohol level above 130mg/100ml. At present, roadside suspension applies at 50km/h over the speed limit or a blood alcohol level above 160mg/100ml. There is no change to the blood alcohol limit of 80mg/100ml.

"These are really measures targeting the worst offenders. They are a very, very small part of the population ... a lunatic fringe that we are trying to target now."

* Police last night named the man who died on Tuesday when his family car crashed into a tree near Te Kuiti. He was Oren James Reweti from the Wellington region.