Plea for Easter weekend

A truck driver’s few careless moments left a mother and father without their baby and four-yearold son last Good Friday.

And 2018’s nightmarish Easter period isn’t far from the thoughts of road policing officers as the long weekend approaches.

It’s been a bleak few weeks on roads around the country with 27 road deaths within eight days earlier this month, including five family members killed in one crash.

While Waikato roads will see a big increase in police, ‘‘we can’t do this alone’’, Waikato road policing Senior Sergeant Pete van de Wetering said.

Last year, seven people died over Easter weekend, and 45 more were seriously injured – it was the highest Easter weekend road toll since 2010 when 12 people died.

A Taranaki truck driver recently pleaded to eight charges relating to a crash that killed siblings Arteen Mosaferi, 4, and two-month-old Radeen Mosaferi on Desert Rd on Good Friday.

A couple of weeks later three people died in the crash near Kopu Bridge on State Highway 25, in mid April, after Haydn David Clark crossed the centre line in a ute near Thames killing married couple Ian James Fielder and Jocelyn Anne Fielder.

Drugs and speed appear to have been contributing factors in that crash, van de Wetering said yesterday.

So far, nine people have died on Waikato roads this year, up to April 17, significantly less than the 16 road deaths at the same time last year.

‘‘But no fatal crash is good news.’’

It’s nine families who have received the worst phone call or knock on the door you can get, van de Wetering said.

A young volunteer firefighter James won’t return to his fiance after his ute was struck by a truck which had crossed the centre line and a motorcyclist won’t be around to raise his children after he was struck by a car in Waipa¯ .

Then there’s those left with injuries they’ll never recover from.

He remembers a crash about six months ago which two young drivers – both critically injured – survived.

But brain injuries mean the young men may never fully recover.

‘‘It’s all preventable,’’ van de Wetering said.

Speed, distraction, fatigue and bad decision making – such as drug or alcohol use – are the biggest contributors to serious crashes.

‘‘But no fatal crash is good news . . . it’s the worst phone call or knock on the door you can get.’’

Pete van de Wetering

MARK TAYLOR/STUFF Five family members died after a car crashed into a tree near Taupo¯ earlier this month.

MARK TAYLOR/STUFF In January married couple iMalisa and Bernard Williams died after colliding with another car on State Highway 4 near Te Kuiti.

TOM LEE/STUFF The scene of a four car crash in January, on State Highway 1B in Taupiri, which left a 70-year-old woman dead.