Road toll hits 13 in dreadful week

Seven days, 12 crashes, 13 dead: The last week of August was a bad one on the roads.

Wednesday was the deadliest, adding five lives to New Zealand’s road toll – now

251 for 2018.

The Ministry of Transport is yet to update the toll to include the two who died in crashes on Sunday, and another who died three days after a crash in Waimauku on Wednesday.

Another crash killed motorsport photographer Kevin Corin, struck by a car during a rally at Hanmer Springs, on Saturday.

The week’s first death was about midnight on Monday, when Rita Ataahua Peka, 38, died in a crash near Lake Matahina, 50km west of Whakata¯ ne.

A two-vehicle crash on State Highway

3, Waitara, killed a woman driver on Tuesday.

Casey Atutahi, 22, was in the back seat of a car when it hit a wall in New Plymouth at 1.30am on Wednesday. Atutahi died in hospital that afternoon. It was just the beginning of Wednesday’s deaths. A person was killed in a crash at the southern entrance of Wellington’s Terrace Tunnel at 7.50am.

A single-vehicle crash that afternoon, on SH35 south of Tolaga Bay, killed another.

A Tekapo-Twizel Rd crash followed, killing 42-year-old Qin Li.

Twizel community members then erected a warning sign near the intersection of Tekapo-Twizel Rd and Mt Cook Rd on Sunday.

Two women also died following a twocar crash on Wednesday in West Auckland.

On Thursday, a crash in Morrinsville killed one, and a motorcyclist died in a collision with a car in Eyrewell Forest, Waimakariri.

Sunday brought two more road deaths and a total of 13 for the week. A pedestrian was hit at Bulls at 4.15am.

At Whangaehu, south of Whanganui, a

23-year-old man died in a two-vehicle crash at 12.30pm. The Wednesday crashes had police posting online, asking ‘‘everyone who reads this post to take five minutes out of their day to think about their driving’’.

On Sunday, a police spokesperson said a driver’s decisions impacted on everybody else on the road. ‘‘Nobody wants to share the road with someone who is taking risks. We all need to act responsibly so everyone can get to their destination safely.’’

A total of 378 road deaths were recorded in 2017. At July’s end, road deaths for 2018 matched that of the year before – 223.