The Easter road toll

The Easter weekend has just ended as far as road toll figures are concerned. Stuff reports:

Police were crossing their fingers last night, with the prospect of no road deaths over Easter tantalisingly close.

"We've been touching wood all over the place," acting national road policing manager Rob Morgan said.

"Any time when you get five days in a row without any road deaths is a cause for celebration."

As of 6pm yesterday, no-one had died on New Zealand roads over the Easter break. If the good run continued, a road toll of zero would be a national first.

The lowest Easter road toll since records began was in 2003, when two people died – but last year five died. The official Easter holiday period runs from 4pm Thursday to 6am today.

A heavy police presence and better driver behaviour contributed to the result, Mr Morgan said.

A reduced speed tolerance was enforced, meaning police could take action against anyone caught driving more than 4kmh over the speed limit.

The reduced tolerance became a permanent holiday-weekend feature after an 18-year high of 12 deaths during Easter in 2010.

Mr Morgan said driver behaviour had been generally good, "though we are still experiencing the odd idiot"

We spent a bit of time on the road this weekend, and the heavy police presence was evident. Between Wanganui and Palmerston North on one trip, we spotted six police cars plus the local camera van. Most of those cars were stopped on the side of the road with lights flashing, having secured another customer. 

Some will say the police presence is heavy-handed. But without doubt it has contributed to the first ever fatality-free Easter weekend on the roads, and that's got to be good news. And generally from what we observed, drivers were being sensible; perhaps the message is getting through.