Western Bay of Plenty students are placing 34 white crosses at two locations in Tauranga in a bid to highlight the consequences of drink driving.

White crosses will be placed at Mount Drury and Red Square in central Tauranga.

Each cross represents the number of drink driving related deaths in the region over the past five years.

The crosses will be placed at Mount Drury in Mount Maunganui on Saturday and in Red Square on Friday.

The awareness campaign is organised by Western Bay of Plenty and Tauranga Students Against Drink Driving.

Members of SADD will be present for the entire day at the two sites and will hand out flyers and answer questions.

Between 2005 and 2009 drink drivers contributed to almost one third of all fatal and serious injury crashes on Western Bay and Tauranga roads, according to SADD.

The organisation says those drunk drivers contributed to 34 deaths during the period, 203 serious injuries and 762 minor injuries.

'We have the whole rest of our lives ahead of us, yet the lethal combination of alcohol and driving is causing so much unnecessary damage on our roads,” says Anna MacDiarmid, SADD representative at Tauranga Girls' College.