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A deadly 12 hours on Waikato roads shows that when people make a mistake, it is their speed that determines the outcome, says the region’s top highway patrolman.
Three people were killed in accidents, with the first death occurring at 3 p.m. Sunday when a motorcycle crashed on Landlyst Rd, five miles northeast of Waihī.
Then at 7:20 p.m., a single-vehicle accident on the Great South Road in Huntly saw one person initially dead, and a second confirmed dead on Monday.
These were three of eight deaths that occurred on New Zealand’s roads over the weekend, with all but one single-vehicle crashes.
READ MORE:
* Eight people killed in a weekend of terror on the roads of New Zealand
* Waikato Police issue a record number of tickets, more than any other region in the country.
* Pedestrian dies after being hit by a vehicle in Hamilton
In addition to the fatal crashes, Inspector Jeff Penno, Waikato’s road safety manager, said another person was seriously injured after a car accident on Taharoa Rd on Sunday.
All the crashes were still under investigation and police could not comment on the causes, he said.
However, overall, about a third of accidents happened because people made a mistake.
“[It’s] nice, normal people who make mistakes.
“What will affect the result is the speed at which those people travel, it’s that simple.”
Highway police recently said that they had scrapped their attitude towards speed on the roads in favor of a no tolerance approach.
By targeting average speed, research shows it will reduce crashes and reduce the severity of crashes, confirmed National Highway Police Manager Acting Superintendent Gini Welch. Stuff on Friday.
“There is a lot of evidence to suggest that if you aim for that 1-10km / h range above the posted speed limit, [has] the greatest impact on the reduction of average speed in the entire region, ”he said.
Penno said that a large group traveling a little faster is collectively a great risk, compared to the great risks they take on the highway.
“The comments about the fact that we should focus our accelerated app on dating ‘yobbos’ and those kinds of people are nonsense.
“This weekend showed us that mistakes happen and speed determines the result.”
In 2020 to date, 29 people have died on Waikato roads, which, according to Penno, was higher than the comparative time in 2019.
He said that attending fatal crashes always had an effect on all responding emergency services personnel.
“It’s not easy, you don’t go home and forget it.
“The ones who trip you up seem to be the ones with a personal element.
“Police traveling by motorcycle are affected by motorcycle deaths, for example.”
“We have an infrastructure that has vehicles that approach each other at high speeds, separated by 30 centimeters of paint.”
He said he was happy to accept criticism leveled at the police against speeding if it helped prevent police from collecting more bodies.
In addition to the Waikato crashes, two people were killed Saturday night in a single-vehicle crash in Macraes, north of Dunedin.
A police spokesman said the single-vehicle crash on Macraes Back Rd in the Waitaki district, inland from Palmerston, was reported shortly before midnight.
Two others suffered serious injuries and were taken to Dunedin hospital.
Earlier on Saturday, a person was killed in a car accident on Boundary Rd, Clover Park near Manukau in Auckland, around 6.30pm.
On Saturday morning in Northland, around 3 a.m., a woman died and two others were injured in another single-vehicle accident, on Pukepoto Rd in Kaitaia.
Also on Saturday morning, a pedestrian was killed after being struck by a vehicle at 1.27 am on the Shenandoah Expressway, near Murchison in Tasman.
The accident occurred on State Highway 65 between Maruia Saddle Rd and Pea Soup Rd.
