The death of Tauranga motorcyclist Justin David Lagas, 30, on Tuesday afternoon brought the number of road deaths in the Bay of Plenty this year to 38.

His death brings the number of people killed in crashes nationally this December to 23 –compared with 19 at the same time in 2009. A total of 34 people were killed on the roads nationally in December last year.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Transport, Waikato roads are the most dangerous this year. There have been 65 people killed in the Waikato compared with 52 in the Auckland region and 50 in the central region. Only nine people died in the Wellington region this year, so far.

Police are again lowering their speed tolerance for the holiday period with the death toll for December already tracking higher than last year.

National police roading manager Superintendent Paula Rose says this year's toll at 366 is closing steadily on last year's final total of 384.

'The gap is narrowing. We don't want any people killed between now and Christmas. We know that's not going to happen, but we need to keep those numbers as low as possible,” says Paula.

'Anyone who dies between now and Christmas – imagine what that's going to do to families.”

The customary 10km/h speed tolerance is reduced to 5km/h for the entire holiday period.

This begins at 4pm on Friday, December 24 and ends at 6am Wednesday, January 5.

During the 2009/2010 Christmas holiday period there were 12 fatal crashes and 291 reported injury crashes. Those crashes resulted in 13 deaths, 67 serious injuries and 342 minor injuries.
The dead include six drivers, five passengers, one motorcycle rider and one pedestrian.

All but one of the 13 deaths and 58 per cent of the injuries were from crashes that occurred on the open road.
Over half the crashes were single vehicle crashes in which a driver lost control of the vehicle or ran off the roadway. Drivers losing control is the most common factor contributing to crashes over the holiday period, causing 34 per cent of crashes.

Inattention caused 19 per cent of the crashes and travelling too fast for the conditions 18 per cent. Alcohol was the contributing factor in 17 per cent of crashes.

Other factors including inexperience, fatigue and failing to give way were contributing factors in 15, 14, 13 per cent of accidents.

‘Did not see other party' was the contributing factor in 10 per cent of accidents.

The Kiwirap site, a joint venture between police, the Automobile Association and transport authorities show New Zealand's deadliest roads – based on the number of fatal and serious injury crashes between 2002 and 2006 are also in Auckland and Waikato.

The Napier-Hastings road, part of the highway between Wellington and Levin, and State Highway 1 near the airport in Christchurch, are also considered ‘high risk'.

A map of this year's crashes shows the fatal crashes clustered on those same roads with the State Highways both north and south of Auckland highlighted as trouble spots.

State Highway 1 heading south through the Waikato and State Highway 2 through the Bay of Plenty, and the smaller roads running off them, also having a high number of crashes.

In the South Island, accidents were more frequent around Nelson and Christchurch, with a clear chain of crashes running the length of State Highway 1 from Christchurch to Dunedin.

While some roads are identified as having more crashes than others, ultimately it is about the driver and not the location, says Rose.

'There's places like the Manawatu Gorge that are very windy, but crashes often happen on straight roads too.

'Any part of the network can be risky. If we could say where the crashes would happen we'd do everything to avoid those taking place.”

Locations that have a high risk during the holidays tend to be on the open roads, and places where people are not used to driving, says Rose.