Newstalk ZB
Nearly two lives a day have been lost on New Zealand roads in the last week of April amid a spike in fatal crashes. According to provisional NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi data, the national road toll in 2026 stands at 120, with 35 fatalities recorded in April alone. The number of deaths since Thursday last week, April 23, reached 13 yesterday, following the death of two people in an after-dark crash between a car and truck on State Highway 1 near Kinleith, South Waikato. One person was also killed and four others injured in a two-vehicle crash on SH2 in rural Hawke’s Bay earlier that evening. Acting Assistant Commissioner Steve Greally, road policing and district support, told the Herald that police view any death on the road as a tragedy, but incidents over the last week had been “particularly horrific”. “Our purpose is to make sure that everybody in New Zealand, whether you’re a resident, a citizen, or a tourist, is safe and feels safe,” he said. “When people lose their lives on our roads, that’s really confronting for our people.” On Monday, three people died in a crash on the Desert Rd shortly before midnight after their car crossed the centre line and collided with a tanker truck, closing the road overnight. The day before, two separate single-vehicle crashes saw one person killed at a rural Taranaki intersection and another woman severely injured on a residential street in Christchurch. The woman - the vehicle’s sole occupant - died overnight after being taken to hospital, police said. Five other deaths were recorded in four separate crashes in the days before, including that of 85-year-old ex-Māori All Blacks captain Dinny Mohi, who was travelling to an Anzac Day dawn service in Rotorua. The car Mohi was travelling in on SH36 collided with another at around 5.30am, killing him and the second vehicle’s driver instantly. Greally said it was important to remember road deaths in New Zealand have significantly declined in the last four years and warned against a knee-jerk reaction to the sudden spike. “Having said that, when we think about the common causes for these kinds of traumatic crashes, four things ring true in most, if not all of them.” Restraint issues; impairment from alcohol, drugs or fatigue; distractions and speed continued to have catastrophic implications for road users caught in accidents, Greally said. However, he noted that patience on the roads is a virtue New Zealanders also tend to fall short on. “For some reason in New Zealand, we want to be at the head of the queue,” Greally said. “I don’t understand it, but it seems to be what a lot of Kiwis do. And we have to stop that. “We’ve got to understand that driving on our roads is inherently dangerous, but it doesn’t have to be if people observe the basic rules.”
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