Despite an increase in road deaths last year, roading officials say targets for reducing the road toll are on track.
Photo: RNZ
The Road to Zero Monitoring Report 2021 shows a provisional 320 deaths and 2323 serious injuries last year, which the report said "is still unacceptably high".
The figures are up on 2020's toll, when 318 people died on the roads and 2175 were seriously injured.
The Road to Zero targets aim for a 40 percent decrease in deaths and serious injuries by 2030 compared to the 2018 toll. The report is jointly released by Te Manatū Waka - the Ministry of Transport, Waka Kotahi and Police.
Deaths and serious injuries per 100,000 people increased in Gisborne by 27 percent (to 104.9) compared to 2018, whereas in Nelson they fell 62 percent to 27.4.
The situation in New Zealand was "diabolical", said Te Manatū Waka Road to Zero director Bryan Sherritt.
And there were stand-out areas needing more focus, such as infrastructure installation, enforcement and better policy settings.
"It's the scale and pace at which those changes are implemented which is critically important."
Sherritt said it was hard to compare annual tolls against each other because there was "a natural variation year-on-year".
"What you should be comparing is more around like a five-year average, how we're tracking against that ... a longer term approach."
He said there was "a way to go still, but so far we're on track".
Recent changes meant there were governance groups with a "razor light sort of focus" on tracking the programme's performance and looking to improve performance, he said.
But making changes in low-performing areas could be challenging, Sherritt said, as "things take time."
"You might think that the installation of a median barrier on a roadway is a relatively straightforward thing, but in almost every case it involves significant widening of the road and significant arrangements with the adjoining property owners - how they access the road moving forward."
He said "if anything", the programme plan had "certainly been ambitious", but "that's what you should be when we're talking about people's lives."
There also needed to be a focus on the Safe System approach, he said, which acknowledged that responsibility for safety is shared amongst those who design, build, manage and use the roads and vehicles.
Minister of Transport Michael Wood referenced the approach in the report's foreword, and said that people needed to recognise the combination of actions needed to improve things.
"Our government will do everything we can to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads, but this has to be a shared national effort."
Waka Kotahi land transport director Kane Patena said roads and roadsides that were "forgiving" needed to be created, as well as safe speed limits and getting people into safer vehicles "so that those simple mistakes don't cost people their lives".
"Waka Kotahi will be prioritising infrastructure investment in safety improvements such as median and side barriers and safety cameras."
Police assistant commissioner Bruce O'Brien said Police were committed to increasing their efforts "and continuing to take the appropriate prevention and enforcement action necessary to reduce" deaths and serious injuries.