Totally agree with this. Knowing that there could be police cars just around the corner is mental reinforcement for good behaviour on the roads. Of course they will probably say that its was ONLY because of the crack down on speed 'tolerance'. I am assuming here, but the report I read about the sole fatality this year was thrown from her vehicle, does that mean that they can quote statistics of 100% of fatalities for Quenn's Birthday weekend 2010 were not wearing seatbelts?

The amount of cops visible on which weekend Dave? Lots of cops around on QB weekend, road toll , 1. The weekend before that, no cops around, busy coping with floods etc, road toll, 1.

The road toll yesterday, 2. Care to place that result into your theory?

The police allegation is that the road toll during holidays is excessive. The unanswered question is whether it is statistically different from any other time given the increased traffic volumes, particularly by drivers in unfamiliar territory many of whom infrequently drive on either rural roads or intercity highways.

Jumping to any kind of conclusions without doing the basic study is just plain clueless but seems utterly endemic in traffic safety circles.

#2 Numbers on the road is a factor too and a normal weekend just doesn't have the traffic of a long one.

Another thought on the same lines is hardly anyone from my workplace went away compared to the usual . The only prson I asked who DID go away flew to Sydney! I think the bad weather and other facotrs (finanical maybe?) meant more stayed home.

I think the problem is that they are predictable.I have been travelling the same road for 7 years and you always know where the cops are going to be and where they aren't. No surprises.

A pertinent blog Dave, as are the comments by the first four posts to it. The low fatal figure was welcome and kudos to the cops for being out there but they so much like to bend the results to suit their entrenched ideas. Few of my many very mobile mates went far due the NZ-wide weather. There had to be a lot less cars on the highways. Driver behaviour does seem to be improving a little. We need huge emphasis on 'drive to the conditions' and get people checking tyre pressures more often, too many half flat tyres about, often not noticed unladen in town but loaded up at speed...

"when they see a police car, lane discipline improves, following distances lengthen and speed generally drops to below the limit"

Makes one wonder, really, why drivers don't do this all the time. They are obviously capable of it.

Further to my previous comment and in support of Dave's main point, it does make sense to deploy more traffic police at times when risk density per kilometre of road is high and they can be more time and distance efficient.

However they should focus on more relevant risky behaviour than marginal breaches of the speed limits. Their performance should be measured objectively rather than their usual self-serving and ridiculous: "All good results are due to our policing and all bad results are due to bad driving."

Good luck getting the police or politico's to except that speed isnt the biggest or worst problem on our roads. The w'end gone is now the precident for lowering the enforcement cushion permanently, that way they can gather more income.

Few points.. 1) Statistically the road toll will always be higher during a period when there are more cars on the road. 2) Bad Weather was more than likely the biggest road toll reducer over the holiday weekend.. who wants to go out in the rain? 3) Surely impatience causes far more accidents than someone driving at 106km/h! Australia has many 110/km and open speed zones and they certainly don't place the emphasis on speed like we do. Their emphasis is on driving to the conditions and driver fatigue.