Firefighters worked to free trapped passengers after a deadly head-on collision on SH1 south of Tokoroa on Boxing Day

This year marks the highest road death toll since 2010, with the number of deaths up for the second year in a row.

By the morning of December 31, the year's road toll was 321 – up 27 from last year.

New Zealand Automobile Association (AA) said that compared to 2014 there had been fewer cyclists and pedestrians killed, but more motorcyclists, drivers, and passengers who lost their lives.

Motoring affairs general manager Mike Noon said to have a second consecutive year of the road toll going up was "awful".

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"The number of deaths and injuries on our roads have dropped a lot from the past but we want that to keep going down and a lot of people right now will be asking questions about why it isn't," Noon said.

"Unfortunately there isn't a silver bullet to reduce our road toll but if we improve the quality of our roads, get more people into safer vehicles, get drunk and drugged drivers off our roads, and get people to make safer choices when they're behind the wheel then we can have a lot less deaths and injuries," he said.

The AA aimed to reduce the annual road toll to fewer than 200 deaths by 2020.

Labour's Transport Spokeswoman Sue Moroney said the Government's road strategies need "an urgent re-think".

"The worst road toll since 2010 comes in the year that National introduced its confusing zero speed tolerance campaign and its shambolic ACC car risk rating scheme," Moroney said.

"Both of these strategies were touted as measures to reduce road deaths and injuries – but this year has seen the reverse occur."

Overall, the road toll has shown a downward trend since the 1980s. It reached a 60-year low of 253 in 2013.