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It is looking like this holiday season will be one of the safest on record on New Zealand's roads.
The road toll increased by just one on Monday to 12, which is less than half the number of people who died on New Zealand roads during the last Christmas and New Year period.
The last day of the official holiday period started with another death. A collision on the Hibiscus Coast Highway killed one and injured three.
The two vehicles collided near the intersection of Schischka Road and Hibiscus Coast Highway at Wenderholm.
Police said that the woman may have lost control of her vehicle on the road made slippery by recent rain.
The smash closed the road in and out of Auckland from the north for several hours, which did not help those forced to pay their $2 to use the Northern Gateway.
However the traffic continued to flow remarkably smoothly.
Earlier on Monday the country's busiest one-lane bridge, Kopu Bridge, near Thames was congested, but traffic was free flowing by Monday night, Inspector Cornelius Kluessien from northern police communications says.
"Most people are getting home now in time for dinner," he says.
The official holiday period ends on Tuesday morning.
Wellington
Meanwhile a point of congestion for many motorists returning to the capital has proven frustrating again this year.
The stretch of road in Otaki may be the one holidaying Wellingtonians dread the most on the journey home.
And where there is congestion on the road, there is congestion on the footpath and at the public toilets.
Families stopping to stretch their legs means business for the abundance of local outlet stores.
But it is stopping for shopping that is being blamed for the traffic troubles.
"It's just all of the action in Otaki," says Mark Owen from the NZ Transport Agency.
"We've got a lot of shops there, we've got a pedestrian crossing and on a day like today you've got a lot of people that are going to and from the races, as well as all the Wellington traffic coming back into town so there's a lot of traffic moving in and around the Otaki area."
