Two families are preparing for Christmas without a loved one following a "horrific" weekend on Southern roads.
Two people were killed and a third was flown to Dunedin Hospital in a critical condition following serious crashes in the South.
Brighton resident Clare Rutter (61) died in a two-car collision in Dunedin’s Blackhead Rd, and another person was killed when their car went into a ditch near Invercargill, on Saturday.
The third crash was near Clinton.
Southern road policing manager Inspector Amelia Steel said it was unusual to have a cluster of serious or fatal crashes in the Southern area.
She described the weekend as horrific.
"We spend our week planning ... for our deployment and making sure our people are in the right place to prevent this sort of trauma on known-risk roads; so when you have notification of a fatality on a road that hasn’t really popped up as a risk, it’s a bit demoralising."
Loss of control, impaired driving, crossing the centre line, and speed were all being looked at as possible factors in the weekend’s crashes.
All three were still being investigated, and no charges had been laid, she said.
"We’ve got to do something to halt this loss of life because it is entirely preventable."
The name of the person killed near Invercargill had not been released as of yesterday.
