Road toll claims 'town' in 10 years

By STUART DYE transport reporter

The equivalent of an entire town has been wiped out on New Zealand's roads over the past decade.

More than 5000 lives have been lost - equivalent to the population of Dargaville - in car crashes since 1994.

"They are not just numbers - they are our brothers and sisters, our husbands and wives, our sons and daughters," said the director of the Land Transport Safety Authority, David Wright.

"They were real people and they all leave behind grieving families and friends."

On Tuesday night, a 21-year-old man died when a car ran off the road and flipped at Whataroa in South Westland.

He was the 459th and final victim of car crashes last year. That toll was up 55 on the 404 people who were killed in 2002.

Mr Wright said the increase was a stark reminder of the dangers of the roads and showed the need for new road safety measures. "When you have more people driving more cars greater distances on about the same amount of road, the natural tendency is for crashes and casualties to go up."

New measures announced last month to target serious speeding drivers and repeat drink-drivers were needed to help reduce crashes.

"An additional $47 million for road safety engineering projects announced in October and a new road code refresher education campaign are also part of a co-ordinated long-term strategy to bring the road toll down," Mr Wright said.

New Zealand's first known fatal crash was in Christchurch in 1908. Since then more than 34,000 people have died on the roads.

The deadliest year was 1973, when 843 were killed, but as recently as 1990 there were 730 road deaths. Despite a 17 per cent population increase and a 27 per cent increase on the number of vehicles since then, that figure is down 37 per cent.

* Towns with 5000 population: Kaitaia, Dargaville, Opotiki, Taumarunui, Wairoa, Dannevirke, Balclutha, Westport.