A "sobering" Waikato road toll is the highest in the country for the year to date, for the second year in a row.

The latest toll, at 28, was almost one fifth of the nation's total so far this year of 147.

The Waikato region's road toll is the highest in the country for the year to date. The toll currently sits on 28 deaths. Photo: File

In May, the total number of deaths, at 26, was five ahead of Auckland and two up from the same time last year in the Waikato.

"It makes for pretty sobering reading," Waikato Regional Council's road safety boss Jo Carling told its regional transport committee.

"It really does remind us how many people are dying on our roads and that doesn't reflect the number of people being seriously injured.

"It's looking quite serious."

The neighbouring Bay of Plenty district was sitting at 17 road fatalities to May 18.

Carling said safety interventions already underway included targeting speeds, educating people on safe road use, and sober driving campaigns.

Waikato district road policing manager Inspector Freda Grace told the committee speed was a major factor in accidents around the Waikato police district.

"Many crashes this year have been involving speeds that are simply inappropriate.

"Speed always has an impact in our crashes."

Grace said other contributing factors were driver fatigue, failing to give way, failing to keep left, distractions, drink driving and drug driving.

A National Speed Management team was focused on looking at legislation, including the possibility of adjusting speeds on highways and rural roads, but there were complaints from the committee that progress was too slow.

The Regional Transport Committee's vision was "working together towards zero deaths and serious injuries on the Waikato's roads" and had set targets to halve the regional road toll by 2040.

Grace said 30 people were stopped for drink driving over the weekend in the Waikato region, "which is quite high".

"The highest was just over 1100 [micrograms per litre] during the day. [There were] two just over the weekend over 1000, that's very, very high. Not high compared to what we used to see, but high for the new limits."