Foreign drivers less dangerous!

Radio NZ report:

New Zealand drivers are crashing at higher rates than drivers visiting this country, Ministry of Transport data shows.

While exact information about the number of foreign drivers on New Zealand roads is not available, it provides enough information to suggest visitors to the country are less likely to crash.
And despite tourist visitor numbers continuing to rise, the number of crashes involving foreign drivers has not risen to match.
The data dispels the myth that overseas tourists are an increased danger on New Zealand roads.

The data, while not perfect, is quite compelling.

Their first graph shows the number of fatal crashes involving an international rental use has stayed around 20 for the last 20 years. But in that time the number of international rental users has gone from 400,000 to 1.5 million.

The data also shows the fatal crash rate of NZ drivers is 14.97 and overseas drivers is 1.61.

Now that second load of data is somewhat flawed as the ideal comparison would be crashes per million kms travelled. But we don’t have that. However the huge difference between 14.97 and 1.61 makes it safe to conclude there is no evidence foreign drivers cause more crashes – quite the opposite.

And the fact the number of crashes has remained constant while the number of foreign drivers has quadrupled is very strong.