Police have backed protocol where drivers' nationalities aren't initially revealed following accidents on New Zealand roads.
It comes after Southern Road Policing issued the direction, which states, "Police will not be initially commenting on the nationality or ethnicity of drivers involved in crashes as any potential factor in a crash must first be considered as part of the investigation".
Visiting drivers account for around six percent of crashes on New Zealand roads.
National Road Policing manager Superintendent Steve Greally says police cannot issue information which is speculative, or irrelevant, in relation to the cause of a crash. He says they're not trying to hide the nationalities of drivers, and frequently this information is issued to media once confirmed and the investigation is completed.
"When it comes to notification of the next of kin we've got to make sure that families find out about the loss of their loved ones in the right environment."
"Social media can be quite cruel, things can go right around the world in seconds," he says, "when you've got a loved one who's travelling overseas and something hits the news and you haven't been told, that can be particular worrying."
Police take crashes on a case-by-case basis and focus on the behaviour that causes the accidents rather than ethnicity, which Supt Greally says is no more important than age and gender.
However, Dog and Lemon car review website editor Clive Matthew-Wilson says police censorship of information about accidents involving foreigners is unacceptable. He says it effectively blocks debate on a major public issue.
"The police have claimed that revealing the nationality of persons involved in an accident might prejudice the public or make tourists a target of public rage," he says, "I don't think this makes sense."
"If an accident was caused by boy racers, the police would shout loudly about it. The police would not be worried that blaming a boy racer might prejudice the public or make boy racers a target of public rage."
When asked about the public interest in knowing the nationality of a driver, Supt Greally says "majority of visiting drivers who crash do so for exactly the same reasons as New Zealand drivers -- their nationality is irrelevant".
"If we can stop people of all ethnicities…if we can change behaviours of people on our roads, of course the risk [will come] down, and death and serious injury should come down too."
Data from the Overseas Drivers in Crashes report shows that between 2010 and 2014, there were 2081 injury-causing crashes in which the foreigners were at fault and of those, 68 were fatal. However, the number of crashes caused by foreigners has remained steady over the past decade despite a surge of about a million tourists annually.
The South Island has a higher number of crashes involving foreign drivers, but Supt Greally says that's because of the nature of southern roads and the tourism industry.
Newshub.
