KEY POINTS:
New Zealand is on course for its lowest annual road toll in more than 50 years.
"Unless something catastrophic happens, we are looking at a much reduced road toll," said national road policing manager Superintendent Paula Rose as New Zealanders flocked to the highways for their summer break.
But Mrs Rose warned there was still no reason for complacency, as this month's toll was close to that of last December.
A toll of 349 road deaths between January 1 and yesterday was 60 below the same time last year, when transport safety officials were perplexed by a blip in an otherwise steady downward trend.
The last time the toll was as low was in 1956, when there were five times fewer vehicles on the roads than today's 3.2 million.
It leaped from 329 deaths that year to 384 in 1957, then kept rising almost continuously to a peak of 843 in 1973, when the first drink-driving blitzes were authorised.
As anti-speeding and seatbelt campaigns were run over the next few years, the toll fell dramatically until the 1980s, when it began a steady climb again.
A decline started in the 1990s, and the toll for 2006 fell to 393 - the first year since 1964 in which fewer than 400 people died on the roads.
But last year's toll rose again, to 422 deaths, dashing hopes of meeting a Government target of reducing fatalities to no more than 300 a year by 2010.
That target is now being reviewed, and the long-range goal is to have no more than 200 road deaths a year by 2040.
Whatever the official targets, Mrs Rose said each death on the country's "killing fields" of tarmac was a tragedy to be avoided.
Drivers owed it not only to themselves and their families, but to everyone else's loved ones, to act safety at all times on the public roads.
"We know that if we're going to get close to those targets we've got to do things differently," she said.
Despite some admirable changes to increase the safety of main roads, and a move to newer cars, funding for safety improvements was limited and New Zealand had a relatively old vehicle fleet, Mrs Rose said.
"You've got to prioritise, but at the end of the day the road is not the sole cause of the crash.
"In an ideal world, we would have roads without bends, without people coming in the opposite lane, without intersections, and we'd have cars that would do everything for you.
"But in the world we live in, it's the driver who makes the decisions."
Transport Minister Steven Joyce has reinforced the police message, saying summer holidays should be a time for relaxing with family and friends rather than grieving for loved ones lost in avoidable tragedies on the roads.
"While the 2008 road toll so far indicates a positive downward trend, the number of people killed and injured on our roads is still too high," Mr Joyce said.
"Drivers who drink, speed or take other risks are not just taking a gamble with their own lives, but with those of everyone else on the road."
New Zealand's 2006 rate of 9.4 road deaths for each 100,000 people ranked 12th highest in a list of 29 countries, above Australia (7.7), Britain (5.4), France (7.7) and the Netherlands (lowest at 4.5) but well below the US (14.2) and Greece (highest at 14.9).
The Ministry of Transport estimated the social cost of road crashes last year at $4.5 billion, up from $4.3 billion, including an official price put on each life lost of $3,374,100.
