Four people died in crash near Lake Pukaki. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
Frustrated drivers are leading to deadly mistakes on roads, driving advocates say after the worst Easter weekend road toll since 2021.
The Ministry of Transport has confirmed the official road death toll for the Easter period from 4pm Thursday until 6am Tuesday was seven.
Four people died on State Highway 8 in Pukaki, while another three died in crashes in Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Tasman.
The Automobile Association says impatient and frustrated drivers are leading to more people making bad decisions on our roads.
AA road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen told Morning Report drivers were losing their lives as a result of risky behaviour.
The Easter weekend road toll is the worst it has been since 2021.
While it was too soon to comment on the specifics of the recent crashes, "there's a lot of indicators showing that we seem to be seeing more frustration, more anger, more bad behaviour out on the roads", Thomsen said.
"That is a terrible thing, and it can lead to people making some really bad decisions and taking risks that can end up costing people their lives in the worst case."
He said AA was concerned about an increase in "really extremely reckless behaviour".
The overall road toll was down from the late 1990s - from about 530 a year to 340.
Research in 2017 looked at a number of fatal crashes and found half of them involved reckless, extreme behaviour, he said.
"We did some analysis earlier this year looking at the recent Christmas / New Year periods and in those periods we're up to more than 3/4 of the fatal crashes involving either a drunk driver, a drugged driver or somebody not wearing a seat belt."
"We seem to be seeing more frustration, anger, bad behaviour out on the roads" - AA road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen
He hoped the legislation would change this year to allow the use of drug testing devices like in Australia and Europe.
Thomsen said a larger police presence on the roads could lower the death toll.
More police on open roads
Road policing director superintendent Steve Greally told Morning Report the Pukaki crash was "absolutely horrific".
Police were still investigating it, he said.
He said police had put out a lot of safe driving messages before the weekend.
Just short of confirming the seventh death, Greally said one of the crashes "potentially happened on private property, which wouldn't count in terms of the official statistics".
"Speed affects around 60 percent of all crashes involving death and serious injury" - Road policing director superintendent Steve Greally
Police data showed the behaviours contributing to incidents on roads include people not wearing seatbelts, alcohol and drugs, fatigue, distraction, and speed.
"Speed affects around 60 percent of all crashes involving death and serious injury."
He said police had been enforcing rules at "levels that are unprecedented".
Breath tests were up, as was speed enforcement on rural roads.
"We had 31 less deaths last year."
There were 1070 dedicated police officers primarily based on the open road deterring people from making "bad decisions", Greally said.
Easter weekend deaths
Early on Sunday morning, one person died in a crash on State Highway 5, Whakarewarewa, south of Rotorua.
Another person died in a three-vehicle crash at Okaramio, northwest of Blenheim on Sunday afternoon. The person died at the scene, and two others were injured.
On Saturday morning, a motorcyclist died in hospital after crashing into a tractor in the Matamata-Piako district.
There were three tractor crashes on the same day.
And four people died in a crash between two vehicles and a motorcycle near Lake Pukaki. Three of them died at the scene on Saturday afternoon, and another who was seriously injured died in hospital two days later.
Two foreign students from the University of Canterbury were among those who died. One of the deceased was riding a motorcycle.