[Taniwha]

Here in NZ during our much harsher, but only 6 weeks, lockdown we had a small number of covid deaths, but they were eclipsed by the drop in the road toll - thru 2020 the almost lack of a flu season due to the covid precautions meant a further drop in the annual death rate.

[tantalor]

"road toll"?

Is that an idiom or do you mean fees charged to drivers?

[ceejayoz]

"The death toll incurred by driving on roads".

[Taniwha]

yes this - we have a socialised medical system, the government understands that reducing the demands on our health system by reducing the number and severity of car accidents is a useful thing, it reduces the costs we all have to pay.

So our police, who are responsible for picking up the pieces, do continual public outreach encouraging people to drive safely/sober/etc the yearly "road toll" is a continual metric that is used to show how well we are doing as in "the road toll this easter has been higher than last year, please drive more slowly"