WHILE no one is breaking out the champagne quite yet, police say this year’s Easter national road toll looks like it will be significantly down on last year’s.

By last night, 14 people had died on the nation’s roads, in contrast to 27 for the Easter holiday period last year and 23 in 1999.

NSW, which had a disastrous Christmas-New Year holiday period with 40 people dying on the roads, showed the most improvement. Only one person, an 11-year-old boy, had died. Police said the boy had been riding an unregistered motorcycle on a country road near Scone when he lost control on Saturday evening.

The death of an eight-year-old girl near the far north Queensland town of Cardwell brought that state’s death toll to four. The girl was travelling in a four-wheel-drive vehicle that hit a bridge railing on the Bruce Highway. Three people also died on Victoria’s roads.

A West Australian driver who died after his car hit a wild pig about 100km northeast of Perth on Saturday brought the state toll to four.

The Northern Territory and South Australia recorded one fatality each.