Crash Concerns Between Queenstown and Milford - Boomer Tourist Season Predicted
Police are urging caution on the Frankton to Kingston highway through the Devil’s Staircase with latest NZTA statistics still showing concerning crash numbers along that route before what’s predicted to be a bumper tourist season even gets underway.
Police, rental car companies and residents along the Queenstown to Milford route have aired concerns in the past about the number of self-drive overseas tourists unfamiliar with local roads speeding to catch Milford boat cruises and general dangerous driving behaviour from many Kiwi drivers too along that route.
NZTA figures obtained show 13 crashes on that busy Frankton to Kingston stretch already between 1 January and 24 August this year – nine involving injuries, eight minor, one serious, with the busy season not yet upon us.
This compares with 10 injury crashes for all of last year, none serious, and the busy summer tourist season not yet begun.
Already for the first seven and a half months of this year there have been 24 crashes on that stretch, seven involving minor injuries compared with eight for all of last year, and one serious injury crash after none at all last year.
Between 2015 and 24 August this year there have been a total of 294 crashes on that Queenstown to Milford route, 15 resulting in serious injuries, three fatalities, 77 minor injury crashes and 199 non-injury.
The worst years since 2015 were 2016 – 35 crashes, and 2017 – 32, with 2024 also a bad year clocking 29 crashes, two serious, including a devastating fatal bus crash near Kingston in December.
Throughout those years 135 of the crashes resulted in death or injury – three fatalities, 18 serious injuries and 114 minor.
There were 29 crashes between Frankton and Kingston in 2024, including the serious fatal bus crash, that total down to 24 last year,
With strong forward bookings and the busy tourist season about to kick in next month Police are warning drivers to be responsible, especially driving through challenging geographical conditions like the Devil’s Staircase. “When you think about the geographical nature of our roads, the amount of tourists driving on them, and the potential for more harm with lazy drivers who cut corners, it’s only luck that there aren’t more crashes,” Otago Lakes Road Policing Manager Senior Sergeant Clint Wright says.
Drivers can expect to see increased Police numbers on certain busier stretches of highways and accident spots in the region, particularly getting into the holiday period. “We deploy to risk. We won’t only be on that road.”
He’s urging drivers to “be patient, drive to the conditions, stick to the correct side of the road and don’t cut corners and be lazy”.
“Make sure you can see and not just believe you can see. For the sake of a couple of seconds that could be life ending,” Wright says.
“Every individual driver needs to take control and responsibility as every second can cause carnage,” he says.
Traffic is likely to become even more dense along that stretch and around Kingston moving forward with more subdivisions and housing being developed requiring even more caution when driving.
