The first of too many deaths
Bronc Taepa was first at many things.
First to lend a hand, first to ready the rugby field for a Saturday match, and first to step in and help raise his grandchildren. He’ll be remembered for all of these things.
But, sadly, the 69-year-old Tauranga grandfather will also be remembered as this country’s first road fatality of 2018.
The first of 355 to have died on our roads so far this year.
The number of deaths is still some way short of last year’s 378 – the worst since 2009 – but there are still 17 days of the year to go.
Taepa was driving his Toyota Estima home at 2.15am on New Year’s Day when he crashed head-on into another vehicle in the opposite lane on Maungatapu Bridge, which crosses Tauranga harbour. He was about 100 metres from his home. The occupants of the other vehicle were not injured and gave Taepa CPR but he could not be revived.
‘‘Nothing prepares you for hearing a loved one has died,’’ his son Warren said.
‘‘Police contacted my mum just a few hours after the accident. I found out a bit later. It was a shock, of course. It’s not how I thought Dad would die. I suppose most people in the same position would think that. Driving is something we all do every day.’’
It was not the first time Warren had lost someone in a road death. In 1981, when he was 12, his step-sister Linda Herewini, aged 17, died in a crash involving a drunk-driver. ‘‘So I know how dangerous roads and driving can be. It’s something I think about often.’’
The coroner has yet to make a finding on Taepa’s death. He would have turned 70 on January 23, 2019.
While Taepa was the first death of hundreds in 2018, he is far from just a number for those who knew him.
Many of the deaths pass with barely a mention in the media but some stand out, such as the horror two-vehicle crash in Waverley on June 27 that claimed seven lives – the worst on New Zealand’s roads in 13 years. Then there four other crashes that each claimed three lives.
How many more will there be before the year is out?
For acting national road policing manager Peter McKennie, telling a family that their loved one is dead never gets easier. ‘‘There’s not many jobs that are tougher. What we do is rock up to someone’s house, often in the middle of the night, to tell them that their loved one has died.
‘‘They haven’t had a chance to say goodbye to their loved one, and we’re ... there to tell them, ‘Hey look, I’m sorry, your loved one is never going to come home’. But as tough as it is for us, they’re the ones that are on the receiving end of that.’’
He urged drivers to be patient over the holiday period, to avoid taking any risks on our roads, and to concentrate.
‘‘We expect people to concentrate when they’re using a firearm, we expect the same when you’re using a car. They’re no different – you’re just as equally likely to hurt someone.’’
To his family, Taepa will be remembered as a ‘‘good and generous’’ dad and grandad.
‘‘He was a strong, driven man,’’ Warren said. ‘‘He was a bookie for years, working out of the Pig Sty pub in the old days. He was a wharfie at the Port [of Tauranga] for ages. He was a staunch figure, well-respected in the community, my Dad, and he was a rugby head.
‘‘He did a lot of work that people didn’t know about. He didn’t want the limelight.’’