More than $70,000 has been sought by the New Zealand Transport Agency for costs associated with nine road crashes in Otago and Southland last year.
The NZTA's Otago-Southland regional branch sent out nine invoices totalling $77,240 to recover costs incurred in traffic management and road repair.
It was a significant increase on the $17,582 sought by the Otago-Southland branch for three crashes in 2011.
The NZTA provided crash-cost data to the Otago Daily Times in response to an Official Information Act request but would not disclose the amount of money it had actually collected in relation to southern region crashes.
Any recovered money was put into a general maintenance account and was not identified by region, the agency said.
It did not provide details of individual cases, or any explanation of why the amount sought in Otago and Southland last year was more than four times that sought in 2011.
Nationally, the NZTA issued 176 invoices for $1.14 million in 2012, and 141 invoices for $1.3 million in 2011.
It had authority to recover costs if a driver was prosecuted and ordered to pay reparation, or if it was satisfied monetary loss was caused by negligent driving.
''The amount sought may include the costs of repairing or replacing damaged property. In some cases, it may also include other foreseeable costs such as the costs of traffic management following an accident,'' the agency said.
It had an undertaking with New Zealand Police to provide any reasonable resources to support officers at crash sites, usually in the form of traffic management.
The NZTA also carried out temporary repairs and full replacement of broken or destroyed road ''furniture''. In turn, police provided driver details to the NZTA and its regional staff determined whether it was appropriate to seek the recovery of costs.
Those responsible were sent letters of explanation and invoices detailing costs, and encouraged to liaise with the NZTA through insurers.
If payment was not arranged ''in a reasonable timeframe'', the NZTA could pursue costs through the small claims tribunal and other legal channels, it said.
''It is not common practice to use debt collection agencies to recover costs but this has occurred when the person responsible does not respond to any contact.''
The NZTA did not evaluate what percentage of all crashes it sought to recover costs from, as most incidents were minor and it was not always possible to identify drivers involved.
