Charismatic

All things being equal since 2011 you would think the vehicle fleet would be safer now yet the death toll has not been reduced, so are we becoming worse drivers? The weird thing is the UK, Australia and the US all have the same issue:

Ministry of Tranzport.

The only changes I could think of was obviously people are probably spending longer on their smart phones now while driving and the age of the population is rising so there may be many more of our treasured senior citizens pottering about?

Timmy Chch

How about population increase so it's little change really?

Charismatic

I though about that but the above is per defined distance travelled, which accounts for population changes and changes in driving habits, rather than per capita.

Justcol

Number of vehicles on the road will have an effect.
I know it says distance traveled but number of users will effect things
I also think people are becoming less tolerant of each other and the number of deaths reported
due to drivers / passengers not wearing seat belts seems to be on the up

garethwm

Texting and driving? Very tempting to have a look when your ph rings while driving.

MrsFychan

add a few more https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/977...crash-in-taupo

Munchkjn

With the driving I witnessed in Northland last week, nothing surprises me. Several examples of people risking their own lives and those of others to overtake me on blind bends when I'm not going that slow. I'm driving at or near the speed limit and nearly everyone else needs to be going 140+ and getting very angry that I'm holding them up. Very odd behaviour surely nothing is worth that risk.

Charismatic

Would have expected a pickup in the mid to late 1990s when we all got our Nokias and could enjoy polyphonic ring tones.

Charismatic

Though car ownership has been increasing for years and we've never had more lights, bells and sensors to remind us to wear seat belts.

Justcol

Our stats aren't helped by the number of deaths we have
that are caused by traveling tourists who are only visiting for a few weeks
Stats show its the Germans who are the worst and yesterdays deaths at Taupo don't help.
If you took away all the deaths caused by tourists it would show a different picture.

Robbie2010

According to Govt figures ... 4 percent of all fatal and injury crashes involve a short-term visitor to New Zealand.

As for worst culprits ... not Germany but the USA!

Bo-Jangles

Tourists always get the blame cos of course all the locals know all the roads and can drive better than anyone else.

I'd hazard a guess that a much higher percentage of deaths on the roads here are as a result of locals that are off their heads on drugs and / or alcohol.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/978...life-cut-short

Justcol

People who doubt the effect tourists have need to come down to Otago in the summer months and watch them all weaving back and forth across lanes, crossing center lines and yellow lines,cutting corners, driving 30 or 40 km under the limit on a single lane road holding up other users, suddenly braking for no reason almost coming to a halt because another car drove past going in the opposite direction

BEVS

Sounds like the home growns up here. They do all of that. They also do it at speed.

thelivinglegend

Don't forget Dubai... many here have a serious problem with driving!