The Cook Islands uses left-handed traffic.[1] The maximum speed limit is 50 km/h.[1] On the main island of Rarotonga, there are no traffic lights and only two roundabouts.[1] A bus operates clockwise and anti-clockwise services around the islands coastal ring-road.[2]
Road safety is poor. In 2011, the Cook Islands had the second-highest per-capita road deaths in the world.[3] In 2018, crashes neared a record high, with speeding, alcohol and careless behaviour being the main causes.[4] Motor-scooters are a common form of transport, but there was no requirement for helmets, making them a common cause of death and injuries.[5][6] Legislation requiring helmets was passed in 2007, but scrapped in early 2008 before it came into force.[7] In 2016, a law was passed requiring visitors and riders aged 16 to 25 to wear helmets, but it was widely flouted.[8] In March 2020 the Cook Islands parliament again legislated for compulsory helmets to be worn from June 26, but implementation was delayed until July 31,[9] and then until September 30.[10]
The Cook Islands has no effective rail transport. Rarotonga had a 170m tourist railway, the Rarotonga Steam Railway, but it is no longer in working condition.[12]
Water transport
Avatiu Harbour, Rarotonga
The Cook Islands have a long history of sea transport. The islands were colonised from Tahiti, and in turn colonised New Zealand in ocean-going waka. In the late nineteenth century, following European contact, the islands had a significant fleet of schooners, which they used to travel between islands and to trade with Tahiti and New Zealand.[13] In 1899, locally owned shipping carried 10% of all international trade to the islands, and 66% of all trade carried by sail.[13] Indigenous-owned shipping was driven out of business following New Zealand's acquisition of the islands, replaced by government-owned vessels, New Zealand trading companies, and the steamships of the Union Steamship Company.[13]
In the past, shipping interruptions have led to shortages of imported goods and fuel, and electricity blackouts on the outer islands.[15] Shipping has frequently been subsidised to ensure service.[16] In 2019 the Cook Islands government announced that it would acquire a dedicated cargo ship for the outer islands after Cook Islands Towage's barge was sold.[17] It subsequently delayed the purchase pending the development of a Cook Islands Shipping Roadmap, and issued a tender for a Pa Enua Shipping Charter.[18]
The Cook Islands operates an open ship registry[19] and has been placed on the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control Black List as a flag of convenience.[20] Ships registered in the Cook Islands have been used to smuggle oil from Iran in defiance of international sanctions.[21] In February 2021 two ships were removed from the shipping register for concealing their movements by turning their Automatic identification system off.[22] In April 2022 the motoryacht Tango owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg was seized in Spain.[23] Maritime Cook Islands claimed that no other sanctioned vessels were on its registry.[24] In July 2022 two yachts owned by sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich were reflagged as Cook Islands vessels, allowing them to escape arrest in Antigua and Barbuda.[25]
In 2024 Maritime Cook Islands deflagged 12 tankers for violating sanctions against Russia and Iran. It denied that it had become a haven for Russia's "dark fleet" of sanctions-evaders.[26]
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