One of NZ's most experienced road policing officers has resigned, saying the job is taking too great a toll on his health.

A senior policewoman was seriously hurt in a head-on smash yesterday.

A senior Western Bay of Plenty police officer has been seriously hurt in a horror smash north of Te Puke this morning and a motorcyclist has died following a crash at Mount Maunganui yesterday.

The festive season is a time of excess. But as the country’s top traffic officer Paula Rose tells Alan Perrott, there is little cheer in counting its cost.

She's lucky to be alive, but 12-year-old Jacqueline Wyatt will have to learn to walk again.

Three people have died on the roads so far this weekend in crashes near Wellsford, in the Far North and in west Auckland.

A 55-year-old woman had just beaten the cancer she had battled for 10 years when a teen, nearly five times over the youth drink driving limit, crossed the centre line and smashed into her car. He was jailed today.

Multiple breaches of police policy have been found in a pursuit where an officer was hit and seriously wounded by a drug-affected fleeing offender. The IPCA found a pursuing officer ignored two orders to abandon the chase.

Witnesses to a fatal car crash in Auckland's Mission Bay heard a survivor scream, 'Bro, I told you not to speed'.

An alcohol-fuelled Auckland road crash early this morning has left a teenage girl dead and three in shock.

A woman who lost control of her car and killed three cyclists says she hates herself for what happened.

The 13-year-old killed when he drove into a fence had been hidden by his family after running away from a caregiver.