Traffic carnage haunts New Zealand roads

THE dangers of driving on New Zealand roads are causing a rethink of road-traffic strategy by Wellington local government.

According to Wellington's daily newspaper, The Dominion Post, the capital has now surpassed Auckland in road casualties per capita.

A new report has found injuries caused by traffic accidents have reached their highest levels for a decade, and more than 1200 injuries were reported in greater Wellington during 2007-2008.

This is against a backdrop of a failing road safety plan, said Joe Hewitt, the regional council's transport strategy development manager.

As a whole, New Zealand has road traffic injury rate roughly twice that of the United Kingdom's. According to IRTAD (International Road Traffic and Accident Database), roughly 11 people are injured on Kiwi roads, compared to only 5 on the UK's, for every 100,000 of the population.

UK drivers will notice a lack of discipline when driving in New Zealand. Even though cars are supposed to be on the left and more or less the same traffic rules apply (with one very conspicuous exception), incidents of undertaking, tailgating, speeding and general sillyness seem to occur regularly and far more often than when back in the UK.