Road deaths on Southern roads have almost doubled on the same period last year and police say people are continuing to ignore warnings about speed, alcohol and seatbelts.
Ministry of Transport statistics show 12 road fatalities in Otago and Southland between January 1 and April 1, compared with seven in the same period last year.
The latest was a 47-year-old man, killed when the vehicle he was driving left the road near Duntroon on Thursday night.
Emergency services were called to the intersection of Earthquake Rd and Livingstone-Duntroon Rd at 8am, when the vehicle was spotted about 100m off the road, at the bottom of a gully in a farm paddock.
Constable Craig Bennett, of Kurow, said police were investigating what could be a drink-driving crash.
"Police are investigating whether speed and alcohol are major contributing factors,'' he said.
Serious crash investigators from Dunedin and Alexandra were at the scene yesterday.
Clutha-Taieri area response manager Senior Sergeant Al Dickie said he had attended "numerous fatal crashes'' in his 38 years as a police officer and people were "still not listening'' to police advice.
"Crashes are not pretty, to say the least, due to the high-speed impacts.
"Bodies are not made to withstand that sort of treatment,'' Snr Sgt Dickie said.
It affected families and emergency services staff deeply.
"A massive void is created when someone they love is suddenly taken from them without warning. The pain is always there. The blood, the look of fear in people's faces, broken bodies, death ... can hit the rescuer hard [too].''
Police were targeting speed, alcohol, texting while driving and drivers not wearing seatbelts, he said.
National road policing operations manager Inspector Peter McKennie said deaths on the roads could be avoided and it came down to driver behaviour.
"Police and the rest of the road safety sector get the messages out there and try and communicate to people about how they drive but at the end of the day it comes down to the people who are driving the cars,'' he said.
"We just need people to be more responsible around their own safety and the safety of others.
"What's disappointing ... is seeing an increasing trend of people not wearing seatbelts, being killed in crashes. It takes a couple of seconds to put a seatbelt on. In many of these cases, people's lives could have been saved.''
He advised drivers to plan ahead and not take risks.
"Just be a little bit patient ... and take it easy on your journey.
"Do up your seat belt, drive fresh, make sure you plan ahead in your journey,'' he said.
Of the 13 districts where road death statistics are calculated across the country, seven were up on the same time last year.
In total, 89 had died on New Zealand roads compared with 81 by March 30 last year.
Waikato had the most road deaths, with 21.
