The official Labour Weekend road toll is seven, one short of last year's total.
The period began at 4pm on Friday and ended at 6am this morning.
"We had six fatal crashes which resulted in 7 deaths,'' said national road policing manager Superintendant Paula Rose. " Four of them had alcohol and four of them had speed involved. Some of them had that lethal combination of both.''
She said the number of crashes this year was 25 per cent down on the same period last year and 30 per cent down on the three-year average.
"This means that less people are getting hurt or involved in crashes. But we've still had a significant fatality number this weekend.''
She said the road toll will affect the communities of those involved.
"Seven people who are going to be missing from families, from work places, from communities,'' she told Radio New Zealand.
The seven deaths were spread over the weekend at different times of the day.
There were two deaths in separate incidents on Saturday, one in Napier, about 7am, the other in Wanganui about 12 hours later.
Four people were killed in three fatal crashes on Sunday.
Two people died in a single car crash on State Highway 2 south of Hastings shortly after 2am, a 30-year-old man was killed in a crash north of Wellsford, about 9am, and a woman died when the car she was driving hit a motorway bridge near Tauranga about 10pm.
The final death was about 2.30am yesterday (Monday) when a pedestrain was hit by a car on Great North Rd in Pt Chevalier, Auckland.
