A push to crack down on crashes involving overseas drivers has seen the launch of a national road safety project.

Provisional crash data for 2013, released by the New Zealand Transport Agency, shows overseas drivers were involved in 11 fatal traffic crashes, 90 serious injury crashes and 448 minor injury crashes.

Overseas drivers were involved in 11 fatal traffic crashes in 2013. Photo: File.

Of these incidents, the overseas driver had primary fault in all fatal crashes, 78 of the serious injury crashes and 328 of the minor injury crashes, resulting in 13 deaths, 105 serious injuries and 508 minor injuries.

NZTA's Waikato/Bay of Plenty regional director Harry Wilson says due to high visitor numbers, combined with challenging roads and conditions, some areas, such as Western Bay of Plenty, have higher incidents of overseas drivers involved in road crashes

Nationwide 2.9 per cent of drivers involved in fatal crashes and 3.9 per cent of drivers involved in injury crashes were on an overseas licence.

In terms of the top 20 areas by number of crashes involving overseas drivers, Western Bay comes in at 13 with its 51 crashes - eight per cent of all crashes in the area. Tauranga sits in 19th with 43 crashes at four per cent.

In a separate Top 20, by proportion of crashes involving overseas drivers, Thames Coromandel comes in at 17 with 36 crashes at nine per cent, and Western Bay 20 with its 51 crashes at eight per cent.

According to NZTA not all overseas drivers involved in crashes have the primary fault in the crash, and only a minority of those crashed because they failed to adapt to NZ driving conditions – including driving on the wrong side of the road or not understanding give way rules.

Harry says in line with the government's road safety strategy, Safer Journeys, steps are being taken to improve the road system through the safe system approach.

NZTA is aiming to bring the road toll down by making the nation's transport system safer.

The NZTA, along with ACC, the Ministry of Transport, Police, and local government has initiated a signature road safety project to focus on ‘visiting drivers', with the initial focus directed towards the lower South Island, where visiting driver crash rates are the highest in the country.

Photo: File.

This project is looking at the wider issue of crashes involving drivers visiting from other areas in New Zealand as well as overseas.

The project will look at what can be done to improve visiting drivers' awareness of New Zealand driving conditions.

At the same time as the provisional figures, Rural Women New Zealand is calling for further efforts to reduce the number of accidents involving tourists.

The group is seeking arrows to be painted on the left-hand side of roads leaving tourist venues, and at regular intervals on all roads.

Rural Women NZ national president Wendy McGowan says: 'In rural areas there may be very intermittent traffic, and tourists may drive along oblivious to the fact that they've pulled out onto the wrong side of the road.

'If there were regular arrows on the roads indicating the direction, especially at intersections, it could be a life-saving reminder."

While stopping short of calling for driving tests for all overseas drivers, RWNZ believes more could be done to educate tourists when they hire rental cars.

'We would like to see ‘keep left' signage placed in all vehicles within driver view, for example as a bold sticker on the steering wheel.

'This is already happening with some rental companies, however it needs to be in a readily-understandable graphic, not just in English.”