Nearly half a million New Zealand drivers' licences are expired and thousands of motorists are apparently unaware they are breaking the law.

The V8 Supercar season is just weeks away and Ford's elite drivers have been taking it to a different limit this week. The pre-season fitness camp is the opportunity to not only work off any Christmas kilos - it's also a seen as a critical team building exercise.

Kiwi motorists are among the most likely to die on roads, despite having one of the more frequent road-testing regimes in the world, reports show.