target drivers speeding, using phones and not wearing seatbelts.<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cDespite a lot of congestion, particularly in Tauranga\u2019s CBD and on the highways, most people have been patient and not taking unnecessary risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems drivers in general are taking on board our safety messages, which is exactly what we have hoped for, and that\u2019s very pleasing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Compared to last year\u2019s Christmas holiday enforcement period, Hunter said the infringement notices issued in the Western Bay of Plenty \u2013 particularly on SH29 \u2013 had dropped \u201cconsiderably\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we want to keep it that way as we head into the New Year and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a poor weather forecast for New Year\u2019s, Hunter urged drivers to take \u201cextreme care\u201d on the roads.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need people to take extreme care, drive to the conditions, slow down, watch their following distances, wear a seat belt and put down their phones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police had received \u201cquite a few\u201d complaints through the 105 phoneline about dangerous driving, though Hunter said callers sometimes forgot to provide the registration number of the offending vehicle.<\/p>\n
\u201cRest assured, we follow up on all these complaints if we can identify the other vehicle and the driver.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyone involved in a road-rage incident should immediately call 111, he said, warning motorists not to pursue the other driver as situations could escalate.<\/p>\n
Sandra Conchie<\/a> is a senior journalist at the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post who has been a journalist for 25 years. She mainly covers police, court and other justice stories, as well as general news. She has been a Canon Media Awards regional\/community reporter of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hunter said as well as damage to the property owner\u2019s fence, the man\u2019s car sustained \u201cmoderate damage\u201d and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29422,63572,50363,50371,111,43,139,69,90,1523,2642,4739,1227,210,14005,121677],"class_list":["post-207510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-crashes","tag-drinkdriver","tag-fence","tag-limit","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-over","tag-rd","tag-six","tag-tauranga","tag-through","tag-times","tag-turret"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}