Police fleeing driver statistics have shown another increase in incidents with a “record-high in the latest quarter” according to New Zealand First.

It follows a crash in Rakaia on early Sunday morning where police pursued a suspicious vehicle in Rolleston. before abandoning it due to the nature of the driving.

The vehicle crashed in Rakaia twenty minutes later with eight people inside. Two including a 13-year-old girl – suffered critical injuries, and four others were seriously injured.

In January there were 42 fleeing driver incidents in Canterbury.

In February there was 40, and in March – 51.

New Zealand First’s Darroch Ball says “this new quarterly record-high is the latest in a string of record-high numbers since 2014.”

“Incidents previously numbered around two hundred a month, this has skyrocketed since 2014 to number around five hundred every month.”

Darroch Ball says “despite the country being in lockdown for almost the entire last week of March we still had fleeing driver incidents averaging almost sixteen every single day.”

 “These numbers have been steadily increasing for the past six years with no action being taken.”

“Seven of the twelve police districts experienced an increase in numbers in March, with the Central region seeing almost an 80% increase and Wellington seeing the highest monthly recorded number for the district ever – more than four times the number than a decade ago.”

“New Zealand First has a member’s bill which would see increased penalties and stricter accountability for fleeing drivers and would correct current holes in the legislation.”

“There needs to be a re-think of how we approach and deal with fleeing drivers.  Whatever is happening now is clearly not working with continued sky-rocketing numbers – and with no end to even more record numbers in sight.”