Otago and Southland have the worst road-crash and casualty figures on urban state highways and local and urban roads in New Zealand, according to statistics collected by the New Zealand Transport Agency over the past five years.
A strategy to focus on improving road safety was agreed to by members of the Otago Regional Council's transport committee at a meeting in Dunedin yesterday as one way to address the woeful record.
Otago has the most crashes and casualties per 100 million vehicle kilometres on both urban and rural roads, while Southland has the worst record for urban state highway crashes, followed by Otago.
ORC transport committee chairman Stephen Woodhead said the figures were an indictment of the habits of drivers in Otago.
"They are a shocking reflection of driving habits within Otago. This is an important issue we all need to front up to across the whole community.'
The figures made for some "sobering information for Otago", Mr Woodhead said.
He said the road safety strategy needed to focus on how people drive, before addressing what roads motorists drive on.
"We need to improve driver habits to lift our safety record," Mr Woodhead said.
Council representatives from Dunedin, Queenstown Lakes, Central Otago, Waitaki, Clutha, police and the New Zealand Transport Agency agreed something needed to be done.
Transport department staff from the respective councils will be encouraged to highlight areas of concern to the NZTA, which will then be responsible for formulating the overall structure of the regional road-safety strategy.
An ORC report highlighting the worst of the Otago road statistics from the NZTA's overall figures, also drew attention to the millions of dollars in flow-on "social" costs.
The social costs of a road crash and any associated casualty injuries include a number of factors, such as loss of life and life quality, medical and legal costs, and property damage costs.
NZTA figures for 2009 put the total social cost of crashes in Otago, for both council roads and state highways, at about $244 million.
The total social costs for New Zealand's road crash and injury casualty figures amount to about $4303 million.
Mr Woodhead and NZTA southern region director Jim Harland said the habits of Otago drivers were largely to blame for a significant proportion of road crashes in the region.
However, Waitaki deputy mayor Jim Hopkins blamed the state of the region's roading infrastructure and said more improvements could be made to make driving safer.
The decision-making and driver judgement of "people behind the wheel" were significant factors in nearly all of the region's road crashes, Mr Harland said.
Otago has about 11%, in total distance, of New Zealand's roading and state highway network and about 5.7% of the national population.
Otago's congestion-free roads and the region's low population were contributing factors to driving habits, given motorists became accustomed to getting to their destination fast, rather than safely, Mr Woodhead said.
Senior Sergeant Steve Larking, of Dunedin, said district police were proactive in reporting road crash accidents and this was one potential contributing factor to the high number of Otago incidents, when compared with other regions around New Zealand and their policing units.
SHOCKING ROAD CRASH STATISTICS
Otago has the most crashes and casualties per 100 million vehicle kilometers on both urban and rural roads from 2007 to 2011.
Southland has the most crashes and casualties per 100 million vehicle kilometers travelled on urban state highways, while Otago is the next worst.
