I am staring at the unrecognisable charred remains of a car sitting on the back of a recovery vehicle. It looks like a scene from Black Hawk Down. But this is not entertainment - it's not a movie.

This is a car that became a coffin. Another Kiwi dead, another life snuffed out, another family devastated, another statistic - one of nine lives lost in the last six or so days, and one of 324 lives lost on New Zealand roads this year. That's a lot of bodies.

So why are we so blasé about road deaths? Why don't we care about the carnage on our roads until it's one of us that's claimed?

I see it every day on roads around Tauranga – selfishness, red light running, under-cutting, needless passing and untold other accident-promoting behaviours.

Why can't we just be nice to each other so that we all get home safely from our road trips? Being courteous helps keep people alive and makes us feel good about ourselves.

I challenge you to look at a picture of that blackened Taupo wreck, that coffin, without it telling us we don't want anyone we know to die in such cheap and appalling circumstances. Stop it right here. Be nice, be considerate. Please.

I Goldsmith, Bureta