Kerre Woodham: The road toll still needs reducing

You'll have heard it in our news, since Monday the 20th of April, 18 people have been killed in 14 separate crashes on our roads. As of this morning, 12 more lives have been lost on New Zealand roads so far this year compared to the same point last year. To give some context though, our road tolls today are nothing like the bad old days. Back in 1973, long before many of you were born, when we had a much smaller population and fewer cars on the road, the road toll was around 850 deaths. And you can only imagine the injuries involved in those as well. In 1975 seatbelts in cars became compulsory and the road toll began to decline. It was around about 625 in 1975 – that was considered cause for celebration. And over time, it's come down to fewer than 300 deaths on the road thanks to seatbelts, thanks to better engineering of cars, thanks to improved medical outcomes and rigorous enforcement of traffic rules.

But the fact that things are better than they used to be will be cold comfort to the families of those killed, to the first responders and to the poor bloody truckies who are travelling along the highway, minding their own business, doing the speed limit, big heavy load on the back, and then watching as inevitable disaster unfolds right in front of them as a car veers across the centre line and heads towards them at 100km/h. There is nowhere for them to go. They cannot stop in time. They just have to wait for the inevitable, which would be horrific. Preliminary findings found 16 of the 18 deaths over these past 10 days occurred on open roads with 100km/h speed limits and no traffic safety barriers. Of those 18 deaths, six of them weren't wearing seatbelts. So there's an obvious fix – buckle up.

The other must be looking at wire median barriers. There's a barrier stretching around three and a half kilometres on the Kapiti Coast along Centennial Highway. That used to be a dreadful section of road – there was nowhere to go. There was a sheer rock face on one side and the sea on the other. A very narrow stretch of road around the coast. In the decade before the first part of the wire median barrier went up in 2005, 16 people were killed, 14 seriously injured in 15 major crashes. So the $15 million barrier was extended in 2007, and between 2007 and 2015, there were no deaths or serious injuries on that part of the highway. The barrier had been struck 122 times since it was installed, but no deaths or serious injuries. Goodness knows what that number would be today in 2026, 11 years later.

I know motorcyclists are wary of the cheese cutters. There are all sorts of dreadful stories about decapitations from the wire barriers, but the numbers don't lie. They save far more lives than they take. Even so, you cannot put a barrier down the length of New Zealand. I mean, even if we had the money, would it be advisable to do so? You just have to look at the numbers I suppose and see where the most fatals occur, and put the wire barriers there. And in the meantime, as a road user, you just have to rely on people doing the right thing. You have to rely on them driving roadworthy cars, not driving while they're tired, not driving under the influence of drugs and or alcohol, and paying attention to the conditions. That doesn't seem too much to ask.

But in the meantime, what are your fixes? You know, the police are tearing their hair out and I just feel for the truckies. You more than anyone must see the near misses, must know how bad those figures could really be, were it not for divine providence. What would you like to see as the people most on the road, most at risk of being an unwilling and faultless participant in fatal crashes? I mean, buckling your seatbelt, I thought as a generation we all did. We all grew up where you buckled your seatbelt and you told your parents because they hadn't grown up with that. Everybody knew. The boss was reminding me of the olden, olden days, and I can vaguely remember where there were no retractable seatbelts. That must have been a wow invention when that happened. Used to have to hang the seatbelts up by their hook in the old Holden Kingswood. But they saved lives almost immediately. From the time they were introduced, the road toll came down by 200, and in the last 10 days, six lives could easily have been saved had they buckled up.

Kerre Woodham, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.