New Zealand saw 340 road deaths in 2023, according to provisional numbers released by police this morning.
The announcement comes as the holiday road toll currently sits at 16. The yearly toll is down 34 from 2022's figure.
"There are still too many people who didn't get to spend the festive season with loved ones," a police spokesperson said.
"Speed, alcohol and drugs and distraction are still the main causes of death and serious injury."
Kiwis were urged to wear their seatbelts and take care this summer.
"As people continue to travel around Aotearoa, the roads will be busier than usual," police said.
"Please be patient, plan your trips, drive sober and pull over if you are feeling tired."
The AA said the toll casts "a severe shadow over the country's roads".
"Any year where the road toll is lower than the previous one is positive, but we are still tracking at nearly a death every day," road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen said.
"This is still well above the number of road deaths there were a decade ago."
A recently published study be the AA Research Foundation showed how upgrading roads can get Road to Zero closer to its goal.
Thomsen added: "This research shows the value in new or upgraded roads which have that have been designed for modern traffic conditions and have features such as safety barriers. They have a real impact on the outcomes of crashes."
Police director of national road policing centre Superintendent Steve Greally said 73% of road trauma happens on roads with speed limits higher than 80km/h.
He said police are deterring people from making bad decisions by making sure they know there's a good chance they'll be caught for doing so.
“We need to be out there as highly visible as possible, unpredictable on where we are and the times that we’re deploying and covering as much of that open road as we possibly can.”
Greally added in the last 12 months, police have doubled their enforcement, which he said will be having an impact.
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