Editorial: Tourist driving an issue worth tackling

It's the trip of a lifetime - it shouldn't be the end of it.

As we reported this week, in a five-year period to last year the Rotorua region had 55 road crashes involving tourists. That's 11 a year on average, or nearly one a month.

Last year 11 overseas drivers were involved in fatal crashes around the country, resulting in 13 deaths.

The Government has this week been accused of failing to do enough to prevent road crashes involving tourists.

This comes after Wednesday's fatal crash involving tourists in a rental car on the West Coast, and last week's fatal crash at Reporoa in which two Australian tourists died.

Steps are being taken. But we have to be realistic about the options. And we have to consider that maybe tourist crashes are not out of proportion with crashes involving locals.

Prime Minister John Key says the tourist accident rate is about the same per capita as for New Zealanders, and that he doesn't think it's a big issue.

But that's no excuse to be relaxed about it.

It really needn't come to tourist driving tests, as called for by a district court judge last month. Would it be practical?

The resource and effort put into that could just as easily be put into saving lives across the board.

To their credit, most tourist drivers probably take extra caution, knowing they are on unfamiliar roads.

But those unfamiliar roads can prove deadly when the unexpected happens.

My overseas driving experience extends mainly to the UK and Ireland, where they also drive on the left. But even there road conditions and driver behaviour are markedly different.

There will never be a 100 per cent smooth transition from country to country.

The New Zealand Transport Agency, ACC, the Ministry of Transport, New Zealand Police, and local government are working on a road safety project to focus on visiting drivers.

The project will look at different ways of encouraging tourists to hire the safest rental vehicles, and promote "safe and realistic" route choices.

It would be great to get the airlines and immigration on board too, showing or distributing useful information including safety tips, road and route information and travelling times.

It may not be a big issue, but it's one worth tackling.