Road safety in New Zealand

In 2024, the provisional number of road deaths in New Zealand for the year stands at 289.[1]

The New Zealand Government publishes Road Safety Objectives, which outlines a plan for tackling road safety issues.[2]

New Zealand ended 2024 with its lowest per capita road death rate in over 100 years, according to provisional data.[3]

Overview

New Zealand reports a daily, monthly, quarterly and annual nationwide road death statistics,[4] plus special period figures for a number of holiday periods:[5]

  • Christmas – New Year : between 4pm on 24 December (22 or 23 December if 24 December falls on a weekend) and 6am on 3 January (4 or 5 January if 1 and/or 2 January fall on a weekend or 2 January falls on a Friday).
  • Easter — from 4pm on the day before Good Friday and 6am the following Tuesday.
  • Queen's Birthday — from 4pm on the Friday before the first Monday in June to 6am the following Tuesday.
  • Labour Day Weekend — from 4pm on the Friday before the last Monday in October to 6am the following Tuesday.

The road deaths statistics include deaths which occur within 30 days of a road accident as a result of injuries received in the accident.[6] Deaths of pedestrians and cyclists are included, but deaths from vehicular accidents not on legal roads (e.g. on farms) are excluded.

The New Zealand road deaths statistics have exhibited a downward trend since the late 1980s through to 2010, which was attributed to a number of factors:

  • A reduction in drink driving, due to public education and strict policing.
  • Improvements in vehicle safety.
  • An increase in the wearing of seat belts due to public education
  • Hazard mitigation works on dangerous stretches of road.
  • Reduction of speed limits in some accident blackspots and areas frequented by vulnerable road users.

Recent road deaths statistics

Road deaths statistics are available from as far back as 1921, when records began. A peak was reached with 843 deaths in 1973. Here are some figures from the last few years (dashes indicate figures not published or unavailable).[7][8][9]

Year Road deaths Fatal crashes No. of injuries
2012 308 - 12,122
2013 253 - 11,781
2014 293 - 11,219
2015 317 - 12,270
2016 327 285 12,456
2017 378 344 14,039
2018 378 14,696
2019 350 14,742
2020 318 292
2021 318 285
2022 372 335
2023 343 306

Deaths per capita

Road deaths and injuries per capita since 2000.[7][9]

Year Population (000) Vehicles (000) No. of fatalities Per 100,000 population Per 10,000 vehicles No. of injuries Per 100,000 population Per 10,000 vehicles
2000 3830.8 2601.7 462 12.1 1.8 10962 286 42.1
2001 3850.1 2633.2 455 11.8 1.7 12368 321 47.0
2002 3939.1 2709.5 405 10.3 1.5 13918 353 51.4
2003 4009.2 2801.0 461 11.5 1.6 14372 359 51.3
2004 4060.9 2920.7 435 10.7 1.5 13890 342 47.6
2005 4098.3 3030.4 405 9.9 1.3 14451 353 47.7
2006 4139.5 3124.3 393 9.5 1.3 15174 367 48.6
2007 4228.3 3189.1 421 10.0 1.3 16013 379 50.2
2008 4268.6 3247.8 366 8.6 1.1 15174 356 46.7
2009 4315.8 3220.3 384 8.9 1.2 14541 337 45.2
2010 4367.8 3230.6 375 8.6 1.2 14031 321 43.4
2011 4405.3 3233.6 284 6.4 0.9 12574 285 38.9
2012 4433.0 3250.1 308 6.9 0.9 12122 273 37.3
2013 4471.1 3304.7 253 5.7 0.8 11781 264 35.6
2014 4509.9 3398.1 293 6.5 0.9 11219 249 33.0
2015 4596.7 3514.8 319 6.9 0.9 12270 267 34.9
2016 4693.0 3656.3 327 7.0 0.9 12456 265 34.1
2017 4,765 3,827 378 7.9 1 14,039 299 36.7
2018 4,841 3,975 378 7.8 1 14,696 304 37
2019 4,920 4,076 352 7.2 0.9 14,742 300 36.2

By types of road user

A breakdown of the types of road users involved in the road death deaths statistics since 2010.[7][10]

Year Drivers Passengers Motor Cyclists Cyclists Pedestrians Other Total
Highest: 307(1987) 250 (1973) 146(1988) 41 (1957) 157 (1973) - -
Lowest: 49 (1952) 49 (2013) 28 (2003) 5(2016) 25 (2015/2016)
2010 180 98 50 10 36 2 375
2011 150 61 33 9 31 0 284
2012 135 82 50 8 33 0 308
2013 125 49 39 8 30 2 253
2014 127 70 43 10 43 0 293
2015 157 75 54 6 25 2 319
2016 163 78 52 5 25 4 327
2017 161 66 34 16 32 309
2018 191 92 45 6 40 4 378
2019 173 79 51 13 29 3 348
2020 158 64 53 11 30 2 318
2021 170 72 43 7 25 1 318
2022 202 64 50 19 36 1 372
2023 184 72 53 9 25 0 343

By age

The following table gives the number of road deaths by age group from 2010. The total killed includes unknown aged fatalities.[7]

Year 0–14 years 15–24 years 25–39 years 40–59 years 60+ years TOTAL
2010 18 113 76 83 85 375
2011 11 82 46 79 65 284
2012 14 62 68 78 84 308
2013 6 64 41 76 64 253
2014 13 61 66 69 81 293
2015 8 84 73 79 74 319
2016 17 82 64 93 71 327
2017 12 66 79 75 76 309
2018 18 69 67 65 84 303
2019 23 40 54 87 68 272
2020 10 64 73 83 88 318
2021 14 62 92 80 70 318
2022 9 73 92 86 101 372
2023 8 76 99 70 90 343

By region

Local Body boundary changes mean that records have been kept from 1980 onwards. In November 2010, the Auckland Super City was established. The figures have been altered for Auckland and other regions to allow for this development.[7]

REGION Lowest Total Highest Total 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Northland 7 (2011) 54 (1989) 18 21 18 23 27 28 27 25 23
Auckland 36 (2014) 197 (1987) 41 48 36 52 46 54 46 34 25
Waikato 33 (2013) 141 (1991) 65 33 48 69 79 54 58 65 50
Bay of Plenty 18 (2013) 70 (1987) 23 18 30 29 31 19 29 32 24
Gisborne / Hawke's Bay 10 (2013) 64 (1986) 31 10 19 15 16 23 18 17 26
Taranaki 7 (2013) 45 (1991) 17 7 11 8 12 2 15 15 11
Manawatu/Wanganui 15 (2013) 81 (1987) 29 15 34 28 16 28 36 16 26
Wellington 10 (2015) 71 (1987) 11 18 12 10 16 12 10 8 11
Nelson / Marlborough 5 (2015) 27 (1984) 9 9 7 5 10 12 7 5 11
West Coast 2 (2020) 18 (2001) 7 9 9 7 4 6 3 3 2
Canterbury 32 (2009) 96 (1989) 33 49 38 47 34 45 38 35 23
Otago 11 (2009) 43 (1988) 17 14 19 18 20 13 9 12 18
Southland 2 (2013) 25 (1984) 7 2 12 8 16 13 7 5 8

Trucks

Around 20% of deaths involve trucks,[9] though trucks form only about 3% of traffic on the roads.[11] A speed study of 188 trucks found 86% took corners faster than the recommended speed and, of truck crashes on the Kaikōura coast, 73% had rolled on a corners with an advisory speed sign.[12]

Tourist road deaths

Overseas licence holders are involved in just over 6 percent of fatal and injury crashes.[13] In 2016 overseas drivers (those with an overseas drivers licence) were involved in 24 fatal traffic crashes, 114 serious injury crashes and 506 minor injury crashes. In comparison, in total in New Zealand in 2016, there were 286 fatal crashes, 2,099 serious injury crashes and 7,583 minor injury crashes.[14] Over the five years from 2012 to 2016, 6.2 percent of fatal and injury crashes involved an overseas driver. Over the same period, 4.1 percent of all drivers involved in crashes were overseas drivers. In 2019 6 fatal crashes involved overseas drivers, killing 17 people.[9]

Use of the term 'road toll'

'Road toll' is a legacy term used in New Zealand for the number of deaths caused annually by road accidents. While the term is still sometime used, the New Zealand Ministry of Transport now uses the term "road deaths".[4] The problem with talking about 'road toll' is that "it implies that road trauma is an acceptable cost of having roads."[15] Journalists[16][17] and media reporting guidelines suggest not using the term.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Police doing all they can to reduce road deaths". New Zealand Police. 2 January 2025.
  2. ^ "New Zealand's Road Safety Objectives". Ministry of Transport.
  3. ^ Roxanne Libatique (10 January 2025). "New Zealand records lowest per capita road toll in over a century". Insurance Business.
  4. ^ a b "Safety — Road deaths". Ministry of Transport, New Zealand.
  5. ^ "Holiday road crash statistics". Ministry of Transport, New Zealand.
  6. ^ "Provisional road deaths - Safety — Road deaths".
  7. ^ a b c d e "Te Marutau — Ngā mate i ngā rori | Safety — Death on NZ roads since 1921". Ministry of Transport. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
  8. ^ "Te Marutau — Ngā mate i ngā rori | Safety — Road deaths". Ministry of Transport. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
  9. ^ a b c d "Te Marutau — Ngā tatauranga ā-tau | Safety — Annual statistics". Ministry of Transport. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
  10. ^ "Safety — Road deaths - Daily updated provisional road deaths". Ministry of Transport, New Zealand.
  11. ^ "Ngā waka rori | Road transport". Ministry of Transport. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
  12. ^ "Speed limits". www.nzta.govt.nz. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
  13. ^ Overseas drivers in crashes
  14. ^ NZ Transport Overseas Driver Fatalities (Page 3 of PDF)
  15. ^ "Lives Lost - Year to Date". Transport Accident Commission. Archived from the original on 10 October 2025. Retrieved 1 November 2025.
  16. ^ Paul Daley (23 December 2023). "The 'road toll' is a benign term that sanitises the senseless waste of human life in Australia". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 May 2024.
  17. ^ Cary Grant (4 January 2018). "Can we stop saying 'road toll'?". Stuff. Archived from the original on 18 November 2020.
  18. ^ "Media guidelines for reporting road traffic incidents" (PDF). Injury Matters. Injury Matters, Road Trauma Support WA. 2022. p. 6. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 June 2024.
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