No fatal accidents since launch of 'Stay Alive on 5' campaign on Napier-Taupō Road

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Roading police constable Steven Knox regularly monitors State Highway 5.

Since the launch of a road safety campaign that was dreamt up by a local traffic officer who polices the notorious Napier-Taupō road, no-one’s died on the highway.

Steven Knox came up with the ‘Stay Alive on 5’ campaign last year, after nine deaths on the road, State Highway 5, between 2019 and 2020.

As part of the campaign, patrols have been increased, twelve road safety billboards have been placed along the highway, and new electronic signs installed urging drivers to slow down.

“The driving behaviour on SH5 is definitely improving, and I thank the travellers for this,” Knox said.

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There have been no fatal car accidents since the launch of ‘Stay Alive on 5’ which kicked off late last year.

“Because of our extra patrols, we have stopped 1073 vehicles for various reasons, issuing 557 tickets and written traffic warnings. We have increased our interactions on SH5 by 417 per cent on previous year”, Knox said.

The road policing constable is part of a team that monitors the 127-kilometre stretch of highway, which has had nine deaths and 40 people suffering serious injuries between 2019 and 2020.

Knox said 355 accidents occurred on the eastern section of the highway (the road’s first 69km from Bay View to Taupo boundary) from 2015 to 2019.

Forty-eight of those resulted in serious injury or death, 238 had high risk behaviour as a factor, and 78 had speed as a factor

Since then, the number of crashes has decreased by almost a quarter, Knox said

“When you compare the social cost of the vehicle crashes, this decrease means the social cost to the country has decreased by $14,310,600.”

Knox said although there was a spike in catching more motorists travelling in excess of 130kmh, he didn’t believe there had been an increase in speeding travellers.

“I believe with our extra presence we are stopping these people, where previously they may have gone through un-detected”.

Knox said for the next six months, police planned to keep the increased level of patrols going and were looking at using different vehicles while monitoring the road.

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency is planning a $100 million safety upgrade for the highway and has already committed $2.5 million for safety improvements over the next four months. These improvements will include side barriers, road markings and rumble lines.

“With the extra works going on up there at the moment, and the expected improvements, we will be monitoring speed through active road work sites as we need to keep those who are working hard up there, safe too,” Knox said.