The official Labour Weekend road toll began at 4pm on Friday and ended at 6am today.
Over this period, there have been no fatalities on New Zealand’s roads, despite very challenging wet and snowy weather across the southern regions for much of the three-day weekend.
It is a record for recent years, with the previous lowest being in 2013 when one person died and 109 people were injured.
The worst Labour Weekend for deaths and serious injuries was in 1983 when 13 people died and 248 were injured.
Last year, there were six deaths, five in 2022, six in 2021, and eight in 2020, according to the Ministry of Transport.
A police spokeswoman told the Otago Daily Times late yesterday, the result was "pleasing".
"On a holiday weekend, we do make sure we have a high police presence on the roads to encourage people to keep driving safely.
"It’s pleasing that on the whole, that’s been the case — especially considering the weather conditions [were] so poor.
"It’s great that people heeded police advice to drive to the conditions and drive safely."
She also praised drivers for stopping and having a rest when they were feeling fatigued.
While there was congestion on some highways around the country as people returned home, drivers had appeared to be patient and drove at safe speeds.
Although there were no fatalities, there were several crashes across Otago and Southland over the weekend.
However, the injuries in those crashes were minor, she said.
"On any given weekend, you would expect a crash or two.
"You couldn’t necessarily attribute any specific crashes this weekend to holiday traffic issues, so it’s important to keep that in mind as well.
"There weren’t any crashes that were serious this weekend — so it seems everyone had a nice holiday," she said.
- additional reporting RNZ
