In the wake of one of our deadliest car crashes, the media upset some by lingering on the aftermath. Pundits and radio hosts claimed costly advertising campaigns came at the cost of safer roads - but deeper reporting revealed the real causes of deaths on our roads are much more complicated.
Listen
Road cones mark the site of the collision on Sunday in which seven people died. Photo: Newshub screenshot
From the first reports breaking the news of the crash near Picton last weekend, it was clear further details would only make it sound worse.
It was the deadliest single crash anywhere in New Zealand since 2019 and one of the worst for decades in the South Island.
Adding to the sadness was the news that many members of one family died, and they were already grieving having just attended a funeral.
On the day, some people objected to the New Zealand Herald website publishing photos under the headline Images reveal true horror of smash that killed seven.
It embedded a video of the wreckage which the words “Absolute Carnage” right at the front, though that was a widely-reported description that one police officer had given to media at a press conference.
There was no question the story, and those scenes, would lead the 6pm news that night.
There was helicopter footage of the crash scene in Newshub at 6’s report, as well as some grainy long-lens stuff shot during the day from behind cordons.
But Newshub’s Juliet Speedy appeared live in the dark with the wreckage as a dramatic backdrop, explaining the police had allowed them through the cordons to report.
“What you're looking at now is the wreckage of that van you just heard about there . . . and quite frankly, it is a miracle anyone survived. What was a van is now a crumpled heap of metal,” she said.
While the officials in charge were saying nothing about the possible cause, residents told Newshub accidents had been happening for years on the road.
“The main cause is just speed. If they’re late for the ferry it's worse,” one local told Newshub's Juliet Speedy, who was at pains to point out “whether the speed was a factor is yet to be determined."
Within 24 hours, a second fatal crash happened just 30 kilometres away on State Highway 6 also involving a truck and a van.
It turned out that in the last decade, there had been five other deaths and 21 serious injuries on State Highway 1 between Picton and Blenheim, making it far from the deadliest stretch of road in the country.
“Leave it to the experts to look at the circumstances around the question as to whether there can be any safety improvements made the fullness of time will bring that out," Marlborough mayor John Leggett told Today FM on Monday morning.
Meanwhile on the AM Show, deputy mayor Nadine Taylor also urged people not to jump to conclusions based on previous crashes.
“You need to wait for the reports to come out. Each accident is quite unique. (There was a) fatality two years ago, but the truck driver was prosecuted for dangerous driving and he was under the influence of drugs at that time. The one that I attended a few months back was a single car accident with a young man and speed involved. So we'll need to wait for the report to come out to see if there's any commonalities."
But on Newstalk ZB, talk radio hosts and their talkback callers were not inclined to wait for the facts.
“As hard as it is to say sometimes tragedy happens and all the laws and advice and ad campaigns in the world won't stop them. Is that fair?” Mike Hosking asked racing driver turned safety advocate Greg Murphy.
He claimed those charged with making our roads safer had “tunnel vision.”
“They are sticking to just spending millions of taxpayers money on horrible advertising campaigns that are not going to make one iota of difference,” he said.
Waka Kotahi's schedule of advertising which sets fresh themes each month. Photo: Waka Kotahi
Newstalk ZB’s Canterbury Mornings host John Macdonald also sheeted the blame home to “those stupid road safety ads they’ve been pouring money into.”
“Do you think any of them have arrived at the Waka Kotahi office today . . . and sent around an email saying ... the ads might not be hitting the mark. That won't be happening today,” he said.
At the same time the ZB Wellington Mornings host Nick Mills had the same target in his sights.
“All we've been hearing about in the last 12 months is Waka Kotahi's Road to Zero campaign. And they're very expensive ad campaigns. Surely, we need our road transport agency to look after the roads throughout New Zealand,” he said.
Caller after caller phoned in to an increasingly emotional Mills with their own accident anecdotes and complaints about substandard stretches of roads - while road safety advertising made by Newstalk ZB for Waka Kotahi ran in the breaks between the talkback.
The radio hosts reacting to seven people dying in one crash last Sunday morning didn't consider whether the road toll might be worse today now without regular reminders in the media of the consequences.
Waka Kotahi and its forerunner the NZTA have run ad campaigns that are among the biggest and costliest ad campaigns of any kind in this country for about 25 year.
Five years ago a Stuff report concluded it was probably money well spent because road deaths in New Zealand have been trending down since a spike of 795 in 1987. In more recent years it’s been around 325 a year - in spite of many more cars on the roads and more trips being made today.
In 1995, a ramped-up campaign of speeding and drink driving enforcement was launched backed up by graphic TV adverts which were still a novelty at that time.
Back then the cost and effectiveness was also questioned.
But one analysis by Lincoln University and Melbourne’s RMIT concluded ‘fear-based advertising’ had reduced fatal accident rates in the following two years among female drivers under 34, and male drivers aged 35 to 54
The youngest male drivers had not been influenced, they said. But 20 years later, those drivers would now be in the age bracket that might be.
RNZ News reported on Tuesday that that Waka Kotahi is falling short of highway safety targets - but for reasons other than spending money on ads.
RNZ’s Phil Pennington wasn’t just reaching for reckons out of the air prompted by tragedy in the headlines. He had been on the case over years, speaking to sources and using the Official Information Act to reveal that - just four years after Waka Kotahi was criticised for regulatory failings - its Transport Network Safety team had been rated so ineffective it has been pulled apart.
The road toll has fallen over recent years for several reasons: more roads are better than they used to be and new legislation, road and licensing rules, education and safer cars are all factors as well.
Another key factor is enforcement.
Last Wednesday, more painstaking work by RNZ’s Phil Pennington revealed police caught 5000 mostly young drivers breaking restricted license rules by carrying passengers last year - but just 10 written warnings were issued.
“Car crashes are a leading cause of death among young people. Almost 42,000 drivers have been caught since 2017 but only 18 were prosecuted.for breaking the ‘restricted license’ rule against carrying passengers,” Pennington told Morning Report.
Police told RNZ there were often sound reasons for not taking a punitive approach with young people, but the leader of Students Against Drunk Driving, former Police officer Donna Govorko told RNZ's Morning Report the tolerance for this was a wider social question.
“Why are parents accepting that their children are breaching (the rules) and they're turning a blind eye? Or even encouraging them to take their siblings or their mates out to their games or their social events? Why are we accepting as a culture that it's okay?” she asked.
The deeper you dig into an issue which periodically explodes in the media when a major tragedy strikes, the more you find it’s more complicated than the instant and emotional reactions of pundits and presenters in the media would have you believe.
And it's certainly a much bigger issue than just money spent on ads for road safety - rather than more safety barriers on dangerous roads.