Fascinating facts

The 20th century road toll

The 20th century will go down in history as a time of incredible change and technological progress. One 20th century phenomenon has transformed the way we live, possibly more than any other - the mass production and wide availability of motor vehicles.

Cars, trucks and motorcycles have given us freedom of movement, quick and reliable transport and the ability to move goods easily from one place to another. The direct and indirect contribution of automobiles to the global economy is immeasurable.

Unfortunately, the age of the car has also been the age of the car crash. And the trauma of crashes is measurable. Today there are an estimated 700,000 killed world-wide every year.

Like most countries, New Zealand has been hit hard by road crashes. Since the first known fatal crash in Christchurch in 1908, an estimated 32,700 people have lost their lives on our roads.

Of course, ever since the first road crash, people have looked for ways to improve road safety. For the first half of the century road safety efforts in this country concentrated on regulations, with the focus on creating and modifying rules for roads and vehicles. The first countermeasures targeting behaviour like drink-driving were not introduced until the 1960s.

 

1908 - 1929 - The first fatal crash, the first driving regulations and the first driver licences.

Year	Road deaths
1908-20	300
1921	69
1922	61
1923	59
1924	94
1925	108
1926	149
1927	138
1928	176
1929	178

The first known fatal crash in New Zealand was on February 22, 1908, when a car swerved to avoid hitting a horse in Christchurch. The car managed to avoid the horse, but it hit a tram. A passenger was thrown from the car and died in hospital a week later. Speed was considered a factor in the crash, with the car estimated to have been travelling at 30 mph (48 km/h).

Prior to 1921, fatal crashes were reported through radio and newspaper reports, but neither crashes or fatalities were officially counted. An estimated 300 road deaths were recorded from media reports between 1908 and 1921. The first official New Zealand road toll, for 1921, recorded 69 deaths. This would rise to 178 by the end of the decade, an increase of 158 per cent.

The first New Zealand driver licence was issued in Wellington in 1912. By 1925 licences had become compulsory for all drivers. The Motor Vehicle Act was passed in 1905 required owners to register and licence their vehicles. Revenue from registration and licensing was used to "upkeep" the roads. The first penalties for dangerous driving also came into effect in 1924. In 1928 third party insurance was introduced - a first for the Commonwealth at the time.

By this time having auto insurance was a good idea. At the end of the 1920s there were over 200,000 vehicles on New Zealand roads, and the yearly road toll was nearing 200. The need to regulate these vehicles and address the rising road toll lead to the establishment of the Transport Department in 1929. Prior to this, road safety and vehicle regulation were administered by several government departments and three hundred local bodies.

 

1930 - 1939 - The first speed limits and traffic inspectors, and the first issue of the New Zealand Road Code.

Year	Road deaths
1930	246
1931	170
1932	168
1933	132
1934	169
1935	190
1936	203
1937	213
1938	243
1939	246

Throughout the 1930s the Transport Department introduced a constant stream of new regulations for traffic and vehicle standards. These included vehicle weight restrictions and the first speed limits. There was no active role in traffic control by the Department - this was then the responsibility of the Main Highways Board, the predecessor of Transit New Zealand.

The road toll showed a dramatic drop in the early years of the decade. Not coincidentally, a maximum speed limit of 30mph (48km/h) for gravel roads was introduced in 1930. The first ever road safety conference in New Zealand was also held in 1930.

As the economy picked up, more cars were purchased and the roads got busier. By the end of the 1930s, the road toll had worked its way back up to pre-depression levels, finishing with the same toll as the decade began.

Two of the main highlights of the 1930s included the creation of a National Road Safety Council and the appointment of 12 new traffic inspectors in 1936. By 1939 the number of inspectors had swelled to 60.

The first edition of the Road Code was published in 1937. This was also the first year that all crashes were reported to the Department of Transport by Police (previously, only fatal crashes were officially reported). Crash injuries for 1937 numbered 4460.

The first Zebra pedestrian crossing was introduced in Petone in 1938.

 

1940 - 1949

Year	Road deaths
1940	205
1941	174
1942	164
1943	152
1944	142
1945	128
1946	191
1947	206
1948	196
1949	218

The road toll declined steadily in the first half of the 1940s, and climbed again in the second half of the decade. The war years partly explain the decline in the early 1940s. A 64% rise in the road toll in 1946 coincided with the return of servicemen from the war.

1948 was a particularly busy year, with an increase in the general speed limit to 50 mph (80 km/h), the introduction of compulsory stop signs and the publication of the first Bike Code. Microwave speed detectors were first used in 1949.

 

1950 - 1959

Year	Road deaths
1950	232
1951	292
1952	272
1953	313
1954	360
1955	333
1956	329
1957	384
1958	379
1959	349

The number of drivers increased sharply in the 1950s, with vehicle registrations rising from about 450,000 in 1950 to about 730,000 by 1959. More motorists meant more crashes, with a 50% increase in the road toll, from 232 in 1950 to 349 at the end of the decade.

Notable developments of the 1950s included the introduction of five-yearly driver licence renewal in 1953 and the requirement for motorcyclists to wear helmets when exceeding 30 mph, beginning in 1955. Give Way signs were introduced in 1957, the same year that saw the free distribution of the Road Code to all households. The first female traffic inspector was appointed in 1954.

 

1960 - 1969

Year	Road deaths
1960	374
1961	393
1962	398
1963	394
1964	428
1965	559
1966	549
1967	570
1968	522
1969	570

With the addition of faster and more powerful cars to New Zealand's vehicle fleet in the mid-1960s came a sharp increase in the road toll, which increased by nearly 200 deaths per year from the beginning of the decade to the end.

There was an increase in the open road speed limit from 50mph (80km/h) to 55mph (88km/h) in 1962. In 1969, the speed limit rose once more, to 60mph (96km/h) for "suitable" sections of roadway.

Significant milestones of the 1960s included the introduction of permanent number plates for all vehicles (1964), a new driving test which included oral and written questions (1965), and the creation of the Ministry of Transport (1968). The 1960s also saw the first road safety television advertising and marked the first Kiwi participation in an international road safety conference, held in Nice, France in 1961.

Perhaps most significantly, blood alcohol and breath testing procedures were introduced in 1969. The limit was set at 100mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. The breathalyser was adopted as a screening device.

New Zealand's road toll surpassed the 500 mark for the first time in the 1960s, jumping to 559 in 1965 from 428 the previous year. Our annual road toll did not get back below 500 until the end of the century - a period of nearly 35 years.

 

1970 - 1979 - The first speeding infringements, the first drink-driving blitz and compulsory wearing of seatbelts.

Year	Road deaths
1970	655
1971	677
1972	713
1973	843
1974	676
1975	628
1976	609
1977	702
1978	654
1979	554

The 1970s saw the highest number of road deaths recorded in a single calendar year in New Zealand, when 843 were killed in 1973. This was an alarming figure and an increase of more than 60 per cent from just five years earlier. The need for a different approach was obvious. New tools were needed to reduce the road toll. The focus shifted to three now very familiar areas; drink-driving, speeding and seatbelts.

The first drink-driving blitzes were conducted in Hamilton and Christchurch in August and October of 1973. Another significant development in the battle with drink- driving occurred in 1978, when the legal blood alcohol limit was lowered to 80mg/ml. The limit had been set at 100 mg/ml when blood alcohol and breath testing were introduced in 1969.

The original "shock" advertisements of 1975 generated a huge response by posing the loaded question "Is a person who drinks, then drives, then kills someone any better than a person who molests a young girl or napalms innocent Vietnamese?"

Speeding infringements were introduced in 1970, highlighting the growing recognition of the impact of speed on crashes. But the real clampdown came in 1974, when the open road speed limit was dropped from 60mph (96km/h) back to 50mph (80km/h). This was a reaction to both skyrocketing world oil prices (the price of fuel shot up from 49 cents a gallon in June 1973 to $1 a gallon 20 months later, and there were rumours the world was going to run out of oil by 2000) and to the record-high road toll. The effect of the lower speed limit on the road toll was immediate, with a 20 per cent recorded in 1974.

It became compulsory to wear seatbelts in all front seating positions of cars and vans in 1975, the same year that metric speed limits and road signs were introduced, with kilometres replacing miles as the standard unit for speed and distance. Seatbelts were made mandatory in all seating positions in December 1979.

Motorcyclists were also targeted in the 1970s, with the introduction of mandatory helmet use in 1974 and mandatory testing in 1976. Together with the steps taken to address speed, alcohol and seatbelts, these measures helped bring the road toll back down to 554 by 1979.

 

1980 - 1989 - The first random stopping campaigns, the introduction of Graduated Driver Licensing.

Year	Road deaths
1980	599
1981	669
1982	673
1983	644
1984	669
1985	747
1986	766
1987	795
1988	727
1989	755

The 1980s began with the hope that the progress made in the late 1970s would be built on and the road toll would continue to fall. Sadly, this was not the case. Instead the road toll climbed steadily, again nearing the 800 mark by 1987.

The increase in the open road speed limit from 80 km/h to 100 km/h in 1985 undoubtedly contributed further to the already rising toll. The number of road deaths shot up to 747 from 669 the previous year, and rose to 795 by 1987.

One of the most significant developments of this decade was the introduction of random breath testing campaigns in 1984, a fore-runner to on-the-spot summonses, introduced in 1988. In 1989, drivers were breath tested when stopped at night for either speeding or not wearing a seatbelt.

New Zealand became the first country to introduce Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL), adopting the system in 1987. The new system was aimed at easing new and young drivers into safe driving by progressing through separate stages over a period of time. Several other countries and states have since followed New Zealand's lead and adopted their own graduated licensing regimes.

Reflective number plates were introduced in 1986, with personalised plates appearing in 1988, the same year the old paper licences were introduced. 1988 also saw the restructuring of the Ministry of Transport and the creation of the Land Transport Division.

While the road toll rose from 1980 to 1987, a downward trend began after that which has been sustained through to the end of the century.

 

1990 - 1999 - The adoption of the Supplementary Road Safety Package, the introduction of photo driver licences and the creation of the LTSA

Year	Road deaths
1990	729
1991	650
1992	646
1993	600
1994	580
1995	582
1996	514
1997	539
1998	501
1999	508

New Zealand has done more to reduce road trauma in the 1990s than in any previous decade. The decade has been marked by a fundamental shift in thinking about road safety both here and overseas, with an even greater emphasis on the human factor side of the equation. New initiatives have been adopted one after another - often after observing their success overseas - and the road toll has been brought down to levels not seen since the early 1960s.

The downward trend begun in the late 1980s has been reinforced by the introduction of several new programmes, including the National Road Safety Plan, the Safety Administration Programme (SAP) and the National Land Transport Programme, all introduced in 1991. Compulsory Breath Testing (CBT) and speed cameras debuted in 1993.

The National Road Safety Committee was created in 1995, the same year the Supplementary Road Safety Package was introduced, supplementing CBT and speed cameras with additional Police enforcement and a hard-hitting national advertising campaign. Three years after the campaign was introduced, the road toll had reached a 34-year low, with 502 deaths recorded in 1998.

Independent evaluation of the campaign concluded that without it, the road toll would have begun to rise again and reached over 600 deaths per year. The Road Safety Package and other programmes have proven effective not only in reducing the number of deaths on the road, but also in cutting the number of minor and serious injuries, despite major growth in traffic volumes.

Another landmark development of the 1990s has been the review of the driver licensing system. Begun in 1994, this was the first comprehensive review of driver licensing since the 1920s. The end result was the introduction of photo driver licences on May 3 of this year, along with the abolition of paper licences and the introduction of roadside licence suspension and vehicle impoundment, along with a raft of changes to the Graduated Driver Licensing system and the older driver regime.

The 1990s have also seen major structural changes to the organisations directly involved in road safety. The Traffic Safety Branch of the Land Transport Division merged with the Police in 1992. The Land Transport Safety Authority was set up as a crown entity separate from the Ministry of Transport the following year.

Other advances this decade have included the introduction of a lower legal breath/blood alcohol limit for drivers aged under 20 years of age (20mg/ml) in 1993; new child restraint laws in 1994 and 1995; improvements in vehicle standards through the introduction of Land Transport Rules throughout the decade; and the redevelopment of the vehicle crash database, with the introduction of the Crash Analysis System in 1998.

Clearly the efforts of the 1990s have had a real impact on reducing the trauma on our roads. As the century draws to a close, there is a real chance that the road toll may end up below 500 for the first time in over 35 years. But while progress is being made, more cars and drivers are added to our roads every day. If the downward trend is to continue into the next century current initiatives will have to be maintained and refined, and changes to our roading environment will undoubtedly foster new innovations in road safety.

Last updated: 15 April 2002