Bringing down our horrific road toll
“We really hope that it is a turning point,” says the Automobile Association’s Mike Noon.
But he says even though that’s a bit of good news, nearly a person a day still dies on our roads – “and that’s not acceptable.” And he says there needs to be twice as much investment in road safety – in technology and education – as there is now.
Even though the total number of road deaths annually increased after 2013, the last decade has still been vastly better than what we used to have in New Zealand.
In the 80s our average annual toll was more than 700.
“We thought we’d cracked it to be quite honest, in 2013 we got 253. And that was [the end of] a long period where the road toll was decreasing every year. And since 2013 it’s just gone up, till in 2018 we’re up to 377 – that was 50 percent increase.
“Last year – 2019 – we’ve come back to 353.”
Read the full article.
RNZ: February 3, 2020
