KEY POINTS:
Organisers of yesterday's inaugural White Rose Day are pleased with the public response to their quest to raise awareness of repeat drunk or drugged drivers.
White Rose Day, to be celebrated every Boxing Day, is aimed at removing repeat offenders from our roads.
The Sensible Sentencing Trust and lobby group Cross Roads selected a white rose as the campaign's symbol because crosses that mark the site of fatal road crashes are usually white, signifying innocence.
To raise awareness and promote the day, seven families have told their stories on the Cross Roads website about loved ones killed in horrific smashes.
They include the families of motorcyclists Leon Mason, Simon Short and Toni Purchase, who were killed near Rotorua in April by disqualified and repeat drink driver Gordon Armstrong as he was speeding with three unrestrained grandchildren, aged 3, 7 and 8, in the car.
The family of Krystal Bennett, 18, have told how she was killed in 2005 on River Rd in the Hutt Valley by disqualified driver Leah Wai Peneha, who was high on P at the time.
The campaign was officially launched yesterday in Central Hawkes Bay, where five white roses marked where five students died in a car crash on Christmas Eve in 1992.
The roses were laid next to crosses on a busy stretch of State Highway 2 between Waipukurau and Takapau.
Megan McPherson, who heads Cross Roads, was a student in Wellington when the Hawkes Bay crash occurred, and was reminded of it when her brother, Jonathan Keogh, was killed on a South Island road last year.
This will be her first festive season without him.
Ms McPherson and her husband Andrew had travelled to the Takapau Plains site with Sensible Sentencing Trust national spokesman Garth McVicar to lay the roses.
"I was in my 20s when this accident happened - I remember because it's a very similar situation to the one that killed my brother," Ms McPherson said.
New Zealand seemed to be "recycling drink drivers" and 15 years after the Central Hawkes Bay crash, similar incidents were still occurring, the campaigner said.
"There are people driving in New Zealand that have 12 previous convictions and they should have been taken off the road," Ms McPherson said.
She said Cross Roads wanted to campaign for changes to the justice system because the status quo gave repeat offenders too many chances to get back behind the wheel.
"Sometimes we are accused of being the 'lock 'em up and throw the key away' group, but if there is an alternative, then that will be fine. If people still have access to cars, that is not good enough."
Ms McPherson said she was "overwhelmed and humbled" by the public response to the campaign.
"People I don't know and who don't know me are talking about it. People are seeing it on the news and supporting us. It's restored my faith in human nature."
About 29,000 drink-drivers were prosecuted in 2006. One-third of those caught were repeat offenders, and more than 3000 had at least three drink-driving convictions.
- ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY NZPA
