Extras Our most fatal morning
When do fatal and serious injury Christmas holiday crashes happen?
The data, analysis, and source code used in this article is available
[here](https://github.com/nzherald/crashes-2018)
New Year's morning is the worst morning on New Zealand's roads.
Data released to the New Zealand Herald by NZTA suggests that New Zealanders are still partying, driving, and then crashing.
Since the start of the year 2000 there have been 444 crashes recorded between midnight and 6 am on New Year's day. Twelve of these were fatal, 33 resulted in serious injuries, and 108 caused minor injuries.
The next worst morning was February 6, with nearly half the number of crashes - 234 in the same time period.
Like New Year's morning, Waitangi Day morning falls on a national holiday when many people have been out celebrating and drinking the night before.
New Year's Morning Crashes
Total number of crashes recorded between midnight and 6am on January 1 since 2000
Christmas Holiday Crashes
Total number of crashes in each six hour period of the Christmas Holiday since 2000
Daily Crashes
Average number of crashes that occur per day since Jan 1, 2000
Fatal
Serious Injury
Minor Injury
Non-injury
On the morning of January 2, only 112 crashes have been recorded --- a quarter the number recorded for the same time-period on the first. The stark difference between two public holiday periods just twenty-four hours apart strongly suggests that partying and driving is the cause of New Year's morning's high crash numbers.
Has there been any change in this behaviour over the last eighteen years?
There doesn't seem to be. The number of fatal, serious injury, minor injury, and non-injury crashes reported each year on New Year's morning --- shown on the right --- doesn't appear to show any significant change in the number of crashes since 2000.
This highlights all the morning periods for the total number of crashes in every six-hour time period during the last eighteen Christmas holiday periods. We can see that New Year's morning results in more of every type of crash than any other morning.
We can also see that for fatal crashes the only other blocks of time that have been worse than New Year's morning are the afternoons of the 27th and 29th of December.
In general, during the Christmas holiday the time period with most crashes is between noon and 6 pm.
In New Zealand more car crashes occur per day during late autumn and early winter. But more fatal and serious injury crashes occur during summer.
During the Christmas holiday period 1.5% of crashes are fatal, compared to 0.9% during the rest of the year. Over summer 1% are fatal, compared to 0.9%, 0.92%, and 0.81% for spring, autumn, and winter respectively.
For both fatal and serious-injury crashes those seasonal differences are even larger --- 7.2% of summer crashes result in a serious injury or fatality, while only 5.9% of winter crashes have the same outcome. A sobering 8% of Christmas holiday crashes result in a fatality or serious injury.
It isn't surprising that there are more crashes overall during the wetter months, but the fact that there are more fatal and serious injury crashes during summer could be due to either driving behaviour or more driving on smaller roads.
Below is a timeline showing when every fatal and serious injury crash has occurred during the last eighteen Christmas holiday periods. Click or tap on a day to see it in more detail.
Hourly Fatal and Serious Injury Crashes
Last updated: 26/12/2018
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