A personal crusade to prevent fatal and serious crashes on one of this country’s more dangerous highways has earnt a Hawke’s Bay Road Policing Sergeant national honours.

Sergeant Steven Knox has been awarded the National Award for Road Safety from the National Road Trauma Centre. He was presented the award at a special ceremony in Christchurch on Thursday, November 7.

Steven joined Police 10 years ago motivated to improve New Zealand roads after losing a close friend in a road crash.

In 2020, he initiated a campaign on the 127-kilometre State Highway 5 between Napier and Taupō, which had seen eight people lose their lives in 2020, and 40 others suffer serious injury in motor vehicle crashes.

Steven worked with Waka Kotahi - NZ Transport Agency, Road Safe Hawke’s Bay, Taupō District Council and several other agencies to launch the 'Stay Alive on 5' campaign. Its goal was simple – to prevent fatal and serious crashes on the highway.

A raft of road safety billboards were erected, as well as electronic signs urging motorists to slow down and alerting them to tight corners. This was alongside increased Police presence and visibility on the road, with both marked and unmarked patrol vehicles working in tandem, and the use of speed camera vans.

The campaign captured the attention of motorsport legend Greg Murphy who publicly backed it.

Sergeant Steven Knox.Photo: NZ Police.

Four years on, the results speak for themselves.

There were 623 days with ZERO fatalities. In the past four years there have been two fatalities. This is lower than the 2015-2019 period.

During the 623 days, there were 83 crashes - 81 were minor and two were serious. The social cost to New Zealand was $3,598,200. This is a significant decrease compared to the previous 623 days, when there were 183 accidents - 19 serious and 13 fatalities - with a social cost of $84,380,400.

Knox is honoured to receive the award in recognition of some great work done keeping people safe on our roads.

“With the rapid increase of people dying on State Highway 5, it became clear something had to be done," he said."This project got together many different government agencies, and the community, to come up with a common plan.

“It is a great example of when Police, other agencies and the community work in unison, we can achieve something quite extraordinary that I’m very proud of.”

Knox worked closely with a local Facebook group, which started in response to concerns on State Highway 5. He says while the group was previously criticising policing efforts on the road, following the launch of Stay Alive on 5 it became a supporter.

And while Cyclone Gabrielle and the subsequent roadworks has certainly slowed the traffic in recent times, Knox said there is still a lot of focus from Police on the Napier-Taupō Road.