Three dead on holiday roads within 24 hours
Just hours into the Easter weekend police are warning motorists to ‘take it easy’
The holiday weekend has turned to tragedy for loved ones of three people who have died on New Zealand roads so far this Easter.
The road toll was zero last Easter, while the country was in level 4 lockdown to stop Covid-19’s spread.
But with freedom comes a return to the risk of death and injury behind the wheel, as Kiwis make their way around the country for the four-day holiday weekend.
The first to die was a person killed in a crash involving a truck and a car just before 8pm on Thursday on State Highway 27 at Kaihere, overlooking the Hauraki Plains in Waikato.
Three other people received moderate injuries, police said.
Eighty minutes later a person died in a crash on SH2 at Mangata¯whiri, north of Hamilton.
And yesterday a person died at the scene of a two-vehicle crash near Whakamaru, about 50km north of Taupo¯, police said.
After the midday crash, at the intersection of SH30 and SH32, one of the vehicles caught fire.
The person who died was the driver of one of the vehicles. No one else was hurt.
An 80-year-old woman also died on Thursday after she was hit by a car in the North Shore suburb of Forrest Hill, succumbing to her injuries hours after the 8.20am incident.
Her death was not included in the Easter road toll because the official holiday period began at 4pm on Thursday and ends at 6am on Tuesday.
Other road users have escaped holiday weekend crashes with their lives, but were left with injuries.
Among them are three ambulance officers and a fourth person after a crash between an ambulance and a utility vehicle towing a boat on Auckland’s North Shore yesterday.
The ambulance was on its way to a patient with lights and sirens going at the time of the crash, St John territory manager Andrew Everiss said.
The ute wedged the emergency vehicle in the air after striking its driver’s side.
Three ambulance officers were taken to North Shore Hospital with moderate and minor injuries, and the person in the ute had minor injuries.
A second ambulance was sent to the initial patient after the incident, which happened on Constellation Drive in Rosedale at 12.15pm.
Support was being provided to those involved, and St John was working with police and had begun its own investigation into the incident.
In a separate crash yesterday, five people were hurt, one critically, after an accident involving two vehicles in the Athenree Gorge, north of Tauranga, just before 11am.
The critically injured person was taken to Thames Hospital by helicopter. The other four suffered minor injuries.
Hours into the long weekend, police were already warning motorists on holiday to “take it easy”.
“We urge motorists to be patient, and to not take any unnecessary risks.”