ACC reveals huge cost of Queen’s Birthday weekend accidents

Accidents on New Zealand roads over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend result in costs of almost $2 million annually, according to ACC. This translates to an average of four people being injured every hour in road accidents.

Data from ACC showed around 400 people lodged a road injury claim for each of the Queen’s Birthday weekends from 2017 to 2021. For this five-year period, total claims costs were at $9.9 million.

After this year’s Queen’s Birthday weekend, which was celebrated from June 4 to 6, another one is coming up – the inaugural Matariki long weekend from June 24 to 26.

In anticipation of another spike in road accidents, ACC injury prevention leader James Whitaker urged drivers to be aware of the risks before they hit the road for the holidays.

“Please, have a ‘hmmm’ before you go so that you and everyone else can be safe,” Whitaker said.

In the recent Easter and ANZAC Day weekends, a total of 15 fatalities were registered due to road accidents, causing claims costs to further rise.

According to ACC, a total of 176,408 road-related injury claims were lodged between 2017 and 2021, with active claims costs for that time frame at a combined $2.45 billion. These costs reached a five-year high last year, at $536 million.

ACC is one of several agencies involved in the government’s Road to Zero campaign, which aims to reduce annual road-related deaths and serious injuries by 40% by 2030.