{"id":212782,"date":"2026-01-02T07:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T07:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/212782\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T07:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T07:07:07","slug":"heavy-rain-warning-for-parts-of-hawkes-bay-issued-police-plead-for-driver-caution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/212782\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavy rain warning for parts of Hawke\u2019s Bay issued, police plead for driver caution"},"content":{"rendered":"

It took less than an hour for the first fatality of the New Year, between Te Aroha and Paeroa.<\/p>\n

Police are imploring motorists to drive safely to the conditions on the first weekend of the year.<\/p>\n

Nationwide weather agency MetService on Friday morning upgraded a heavy rain watch into a heavy rain warning for Hawke\u2019s Bay north of Napier, and extended it into the Ruahine Ranges.<\/p>\n

The warning said 70-100mm of rain, with peaks at up to 25mm an hour, could be expected for the 14 hours from 9am-11pm on Saturday.<\/p>\n

With potential for surface flooding and slips, and rapid rising of streams and rivers, it would likely hit state highways 2 and 5 as traffic intensifies in the last days of the peak holiday season.<\/p>\n

Eastern Police road policing manager Inspector Angela Hallett said there were at least two crashes in wet weather on Monday-Tuesday.<\/p>\n

They included the death of a person when a vehicle left the road between Tangoio and Tutira late on Tuesday morning<\/a>, but she stressed that crash was still under investigation.<\/p>\n

\"EasternEastern Police District road policing manager Inspector Angela Hallett. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

National police director of road policing Superintendent Steve Greally noted the 2025 numbers represented the third year in a row of nationwide road-toll decline.<\/p>\n

In the same period, police had almost tripled the number of driver alcohol breath tests.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor another year, our officers have worked tirelessly to ensure we can do everything possible to reduce the number of serious injuries and fatalities on our roads,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBreath testing and speed enforcement are two of our main focus areas, and we will continue to make no excuses for stopping and testing people.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we are still seeing evidence that people are making the wrong decisions when it comes to speed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Police also rolled out roadside driver drug testing in the Wellington region in December, and expect the offensive to go national between April and June.<\/p>\n

In Hawke\u2019s Bay, where the open road speed limit on SH5 between Eskdale and the Rangitaiki Plains reverted to 100km\/h, after three years at 80km\/h, a big year is ahead on the roads, with the Expressway four-laning project underway, including bridge construction, and a start expected on the Waikare realignment north of Putorino. <\/p>\n

Doug Laing is a Hawke\u2019s Bay Today reporter based in Napier, and who first covered a fatal road crash in the region in 1973 – the year of New Zealand\u2019s worst road toll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took less than an hour for the first fatality of the New Year, between Te Aroha and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1561,38914,19552,15211,2082,1976,6559,26755,18087,111,43,139,69,1118,17711,6744,116821,675,6560,381,21714,4497,8229,129031,4524,1455,102,379],"class_list":{"0":"post-212782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-bay","9":"tag-caution","10":"tag-driver","11":"tag-drivers","12":"tag-for","13":"tag-hawkes","14":"tag-heavy","15":"tag-highway","16":"tag-issued","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-of","22":"tag-parts","23":"tag-place","24":"tag-plead","25":"tag-police","26":"tag-rain","27":"tag-region","28":"tag-sections","29":"tag-start","30":"tag-they","31":"tag-trickiest","32":"tag-want","33":"tag-warning","34":"tag-with","35":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212782","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=212782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}