High road toll for year predicted

Press, 23 December 1986, Page 8

High road toll for year predicted

PA Wellington Last year’s national road toll was surpassed yesterday and the Ministry of Transport predicts at least 25 more people could die in traffic accidents in the nine days to the end of the year. The total number of road deaths reached 748 yesterday, one more than for the whole of 1985. “The writing is on the wall for it to go even higher in the next week,” said Assistant Chief Traffic Superintendent Henry Gore. In 1973, 843 people were killed on New Zealand’s roads and this year’s total would be the second highest on record, he said. The Christmas-New Year holiday period, for statistics purposes, will begin at 4 p.m. tomorrow and will end at 8 a.m. on Monday, January 5, and the Ministry has predicted

at least 340 accidents will happen during that period. Judging from the number killed in previous years, at least 25 people could die in road accidents during the holiday period and more than 500 people could be injured, according to Mr Gore. Alcohol was involved in at least 50 per cent of the fatal accidents during the holiday period last year, Mr Gore said. Regulations and laws should not be neglected simply because the majority were on holiday from Christmas Eve till New Year’s Day, but many motorists, Mr Gore said, appeared to believe this was the case and the consequences for the road users were tragic. “Adhere to the rules which include the wearing of seat belts and no drinking and driving.” Mr Gore said that of

the 747 people killed last year, at least 65 might have been alive today had they worn seat belts. Since the opening two weeks ago of the preChristmas drink-drive blitz, more than 73,600 motorists have been stopped at checkpoints by the combined Ministry of Transport and police national operation. Of that number, 2622 have undergone breath tests and 1177 have taken evidential breath tests. Officers have taken blood from 355, and 48 motorists have been ar-, rested during the blitz, Mr Gore said. For every 100 drivers stopped 3.5 per cent have been suspected of drinking and have been breath tested. “This is very satisfactory with the national average up to the beginning of December being 4.4 per cent.”