Only four people have died on Tonga's roads so far this year - the lowest road toll in three years - but, tragically, in 2005 the victims were children who were hit while crossing the road, while the number of non-fatal road accidents has increased on previous years.

Tonga's Deputy Commander of Traffic, Pesalili Kailahi said that four road deaths up to December 29 is the lowest figure in the past three years. The highest was in 2003 with 20 deaths, and last year there were 11. Despite a drop in road deaths, there was an increase in road accidents, "averaging 1.2 accidents daily."

Pesalili said that the four road deaths were mainly children crossing the road, and he blamed parents for not taking care of their children when they cross the road.

A road awareness television programme had been aired during the year and Pesalili wanted to thank the British High Commissioner and Avis Car Rental for financing this programme, which he believed had contributed to a lower road toll.

Haveluloto Death Curve

Meanwhile, during the Christmas holiday period the number of road accidents in Tongatapu since December 23 came to only five. Pesalili said there were also a lot of minor accidents such as people backing into other vehicles, but of the five major accidents three had occurred on the Haveluloto Death Curve.

Last week on two separate occasions, drivers heading out of town on Taufa'ahau Road went off the road at the Haveluloto Death Curve and crashed through the gates of the home of the CEO of Shoreline, Soane Ramanlal. Three days later another car went off the road and crashed onto the concrete fence of the same property. Yesterday a van brought down the power pole on the same side of the road on the curve. Pesalili said that the drivers of these three vehicles admitted that they fell asleep, and fortunately they received only minor injuries.

Over the years a number of people have died in serious accidents on the Haveluloto Curve. Residents on the outside of the curve regularly rebuild their fences, broken by vehicles going off the road, while Havelu township is accustomed to power outages in the early hours of the morning due to vehicles repeatedly hitting the same power pole on the curve. A small barrier built to protect the pole has been ineffective in stopping stray vehicles.

Democratic round-abouts

Improvements to the Nuku'alofa traffic system during the year have included the building of a number of round-abouts on busy intersections. Pesalili described it as, "a democratic way of traffic control - because drivers have to give way to the right."