Solutions to prevent wrong-side accidents

Rental car companies may extend a black listing scheme to keep bad tourist drivers off the road and there are hopes new technology will eventually help prevent crashes.

The rental industry plans to extend a scheme which last summer saw companies in the West Coast and in the lower South Island share details of drivers whose contracts were cancelled after they were involved in accidents or caught dangerous driving by police.

The black list prevents bad drivers ‘‘shopping’’ around for a replacement hire vehicle and they are instead given information about other travel options, such as public transport.

Rental Vehicle Association (RVA) president Mark Righton would not reveal which region would be next until a final decision was made, ‘‘but it will be where we think it will make a significant difference’’.

He hoped it would be in place for the summer when there would be an estimated 40,000 rental car drivers a day on the road, and at least 100,000 over the peak period.

The RVA declined to say how many tourists had been blacklisted to date, but an industry source said contract cancellations were a daily occurrence.

During the past three years the number of registered rental cars, motorhomes and vans has increased from 33,155 to just under

59,000, matching the boom in international visitor arrivals.

RVA chief executive Barry Kidd said the rental fleet was newer, with very few vehicles more than three or four years old, and modern safety features helped prevent injuries and deaths.

Last year drivers on overseas licences were involved in 24 out of

286 fatal crashes, and 114 out of

2099 serious injury ones.

Just over half of overseas drivers at fault in crashes were from countries that drive on the right, and failing to keep left was a factor in about a third of those involved in fatal crashes.

Kidd said pulling out of laybys

onto an empty road was a real danger because without visual cues, drivers frequently reverted to old habits.

‘‘Most of them get 100 metres down the road and something doesn’t feel right because the signs are facing the other way or road markings don’t look right.’’

The New Zealand Transport Authority and rental companies have tried a range of measures to remind visitors to keep left ranging from painting arrows on the road beside rest stops, to putting warning labels on steering wheels.

Righton, also New Zealand Hertz manager, said that his company had recently installed stickers that reflected an arrow up onto the windscreen which was more in the driver’s eye-line than a steering wheel tag.

Tourism Holdings Ltd (THL) chief executive Grant Webster is confident lane detection systems that sound a warning when drivers end up on the wrong side of the road will make a huge difference.

New motorhome models featuring the technology may be available here next summer.

When the company is alerted to incidents such as heavy braking, harsh cornering, and severe or frequent speeding, it sends automated warnings to drivers via tablets in the vehicles.

The warning messages had cut accidents and reduced speeding by 80 per cent, Webster said.