New Zealand, we all need to slow down on our roads. (File photo)

OPINION: The carnage has to stop.

Recently we heard of another life taken for whatever reason on New Zealand’s roads. It’s too early to speculate what may have been the cause, but as a truckie who does about 400km to 500km a night - which isn’t much compared to others - I can surmise.

As professional drivers, we see the consequences of stupid driving everyday; the near misses, the skid marks, the broken fences on the side of the road, and of course, the crosses.

As truck drivers, one of the biggest fears most of us have is coming around the corner and being faced with something we can’t avoid. Or coming across a crash where there is nothing we can do.

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The police hierarchy blame speed, not wearing seatbelts, or inexperience. In May, the Police National Roading Manager, Steve Greally actually stated in the media that allocations for road policing were "not enough to retain service delivery levels".

To us out there driving, this is self-evident as we just don't see police out on the road any more. There is no broken window policy – but reactive instead. And even that isn’t effective because when you ring *555 to report a bad driver, more often than not, you’re told to do the online report and that’s all you hear about it.

In the meantime, you’re hoping like hell that you aren’t going to come across the bad driver, buried in the nose of a fellow driver.

The small offences like red-light running, stop signs, speeding past school buses - and generally speeding within suburbs - are just not being enforced at the level that it used to be.

I’m not bagging the police. The guys that are out on the road do the best they can under the resourcing they do have, but the fact that 111 road traffic positions were eliminated because of funding, says a lot.

That’s 111 'traffic cops' who aren’t out there anymore. Even in the heavy transport industry, the enforcement seems to have disappeared - with the commercial vehicle units concentrating on the mechanical side of inspections rather than being out on the road keeping an eye on the speed of trucks and generally enforcing other road users as well.

CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF One of these days I’m going to be the one that gets hit. And that scares me. (File photo)

We really need to go back to basics. If you adopt a ‘broken window’ policy of having more staff out on the road enforcing the small stuff, people will adopt a better driving practice and the stupidity out on the highways will be reduced. The New Zealand public will be forever looking out for the next traffic cop.

At the moment, you can drive from Hawke's Bay to Auckland and not see even one, and I don’t care what anyone says, that’s just an encouragement for some to drive like total idiot.

In the eyes of someone that drives for a profession, the state of the roads are disgusting. There are patches upon patches, because instead of filling in the potholes, they just patch over the top of them.

Us drivers are just a little annoyed that our trucks get shaken around so much. Just take a drive up State Highway One from Wairakei to Tokoroa and you’ll see what I mean. The slashing of funding for roads is self-evident. The Government needs to have a very good look at what is important and to us on the coalface – it’s not rail.

The media have a hand in some things too. Focusing on tourist crashes is not the answer. They make up less than 95 per cent of total crashes on New Zealand roads. Less than 6 per cent total of serious and fatal crashes. The rest is all on us as Kiwis.

We are the ones that need to slow down. We are the ones that need to realise that driving like a complete idiot doesn’t get us to our destination any quicker.

I spent 20 odd years in some kind of law enforcement before driving a truck. I’m used to seeing death, it doesn’t phase me. But one of these days I’m going to be the one that gets hit, and that scares me.