Police turning back travellers at checkpoints
Police are turning back would-be holidaymakers trying to head away for the long weekend.
It comes as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pleaded with people not to be selfish and warned there would be road blocks and extra police over Easter.
New Zealanders were breaking the chain of Covid-19 transmission but success did not mean it was time to change the course, she said.
‘‘You will have seen an increase in police enforcement in recent days, I expect that to continue, including road blocks in some places this Easter weekend,’’ Ardern said.
‘‘While most people are doing the right thing, some are not. We cannot let the selfish actions of a few set us back.’’
Removing restrictions now would allow the virus to spread rapidly once again and New Zealand could be back to the starting line within two weeks, she said.
‘‘That’s also why we will keep enforcing the rules.’’
Checkpoints nationwide
In Wellington on Thursday, police were stopping and checking all vehicles travelling north out of Wellington on State Highway 1 near Plimmerton.
Police said there had been a stream of cars stopped there already.
Canterbury road policing manager Inspector Greg Cottam said Canterbury was not seeing a great deal of traffic on its highways apart from essential service vehicles.
Canterbury police set up random checkpoints around the region from Thursday, looking for people who may be moving out of their bubble, he said.
Police would be ‘‘educating’’ people on isolation rules and relying on their goodwill to follow those rules.
Warnings or prosecution would only be used for serious or repeat offenders, he said.
Tasman road policing team leader Senior Sergeant Grant Andrews said before noon on Thursday, more than 10 vehicles from Christchurch heading to holiday spots in Nelson, Golden Bay and the West Coast were stopped and told to return home.
Campervans turned back
Andrews said a checkpoint had been set up at O’Sullivan’s Bridge on State Highway 6 south of Murchison, due to the volume of traffic coming into the region from Canterbury and further south.
‘‘There’s been campervans, house buses and the like which have been clearly breaching the lockdown – and that’s all there is to it.
‘‘They’ve been warned, turned around, and sent back to their place of origin.’’
Andrews said due to the expected increase in volume on the road, the Murchison checkpoint would be strengthened and another set up at Springs Junction.
There were no excuses for people being uninformed about the rules of lockdown at this time, he said.
‘‘You can’t be unaware, there are signs on the road sides asking if your travel is essential –it’s very clear you shouldn’t be travelling.
‘‘The risk we’ve got is we have people outside of the Tasman District trying to come here.
‘‘There’s very limited traffic trying to go the other way, it’s people from further down south trying to come up into the West Coast and Nelson and Marlborough, which is really disappointing.’’
Andrews said no other checkpoints had been needed so far in Nelson, with very few people having to be turned away from the roads leading to Golden Bay and other holiday spots.
Ideally checkpoints would have been a ‘‘last resort’’, but because of the traffic they had been necessary for police to do their job safely, he said.
‘‘We don’t want to be doing checkpoints, we just want to be talking to individuals as they come along, when the traffic levels should be very light.’’
Another checkpoint had been set up on SH6 at Hira, the main link between Blenheim and Nelson, Nelson police said on its Facebook page.
Forty vehicles were stopped by police within 90 minutes, with 12 of them found to have no valid reason for travelling, the post said.
‘‘These people were warned and told to go home immediately. Please stay home and stay safe.’’