New study shows where in New Zealand drivers get the most speeding tickets

Drivers in the Tasman district have been issued with the most speeding tickets in the last four years, new data shows. Photo / File

Drivers in Nelson Bay, the West Coast and Marlborough need to hit the brakes, according to new data showing which New Zealand regions get the most speeding tickets.

An analysis of NZ Police data found the Tasman Police District issued the most tickets per head of population, at 1.01 tickets over four years.

Only mobile speed camera and road-side tickets were counted in the study. It did not include tickets from fixed speed cameras as it was thought drivers were likely to know where those cameras were and slow down accordingly.

The second most speed infringements per capita was Waitemata (which includes some of the country's largest motorways) at a rate of 0.82 per person, followed by Waikato at 0.74 per capita.

Wellington (including Hutt Valley, Kapiti-Mana and the Wairarapa) had the lowest number of combined speeding infringements per capita at 0.34.

The data showed drivers in the Tasman district were issued with the most speeding tickets in the last four years, when fixed cameras were excluded. Image / Teletrac Navman

It was not clear from the study whether drivers from these areas speed more than others around the country, or whether the areas' roads are more heavily policed. The study also did not take into account whether people lived locally or were just driving through when the tickets were issued.

"When I was a police officer, it was my job to knock on people's door and tell them that the person they loved had died in a road collision. It's not a part of the job that any officer enjoys," said Chris L'Ecluse, a spokesman for Teletrac Navman, which carried out the study.

"We analysed the data and developed this infographic to highlight the issue of speeding. New Zealanders all over the country need to slow down on the roads – perhaps a little regional comparison will help get that message across.

"What's particularly alarming is that the Tasman Police District has plenty of open road, meaning that people breaking the speed limit will very often be going well over 100km per hour.

"Speed is a key component to stopping distances, travelling at 100km per hour gives a stopping distance of approximately 50m. Brake Charity estimated that for every 2km reduced in speed, a collision is 5 per cent less likely to happen."