Amy McCarthy and Riley Baker were building a life together. The Dunedin couple had found a flat, adopted a cat and were planning to marry next year.
All that changed on August 13 as Mr Baker (26) rode his motorcycle down State Highway 1, near Shag Point, on a late winter afternoon.It was 4.30pm and Chinese tourist Lemin Ma’s car had just crossed the centre line into Mr Baker’s path.
The crash catapulted Mr Baker from his motorcycle and left him lying on the highway — barely clinging to life, his body broken.
He was delivered to Dunedin Hospital in a critical condition but doctors soon confirmed the worst — Mr Baker had suffered a stroke, his brain was swelling and he had just 24 hours to live.
For Miss McCarthy (22), what followed was a blur of grief, a funeral and a court date, at which she delivered a heart-rending victim impact statement.
Ma admitted his guilt and was sentenced to 150 hours’ community work, disqualified from driving and ordered to pay Mr Baker’s family $30,000.
The court heard he had failed to see Mr Baker’s motorcycle or the cars behind it, as he focused on reaching a rest area on the opposite side of the highway.
It was a crash Judge Kevin Phillips blamed on ‘‘a moment’s loss of concentration", but one Miss McCarthy said handed those who loved Mr Baker a life sentence.
"In a year or two, this may be over for you. But every day for the rest of my life I will continue to have a Riley-sized hole in my heart," she told the court.
And, speaking to ODT Insight two months on, Miss McCarthy said life since the crash had been "really difficult".
She had only recently been able to face visiting the crash scene and sorting through Mr Baker’s possessions had been "the worst thing I have ever had to do".
Returning to work had helped but each day remained a battle, especially when Miss McCarthy came face-to-face with Ma as she walked to work, and he headed to his community work placement, each morning.
They recognised each other but did not speak, Miss McCarthy said.
"I really don’t think he has anything that he can say that’s going to make this better," she said.
But Ma was hurting too, his defence counsel, Anne Stevens, told the court at his sentencing.
He was a man of "good character, of responsible habits and a caring disposition" and was full of remorse for the death he had caused, she said.
"Regardless of sentence, at the expiry of sentence, that sense of grief and hurt that he has . . . ended the life of a young man stays with him."
It was a message reiterated when ODT Insight asked to talk to Ma.
His wife, in an emailed response, said he was not in a position to discuss the accident but wanted to "sincerely apologize again for the terrible mistake".
"It’s a tragedy for both sides."
It is the kind of pain that has seared itself into the public’s consciousness following a string of high-profile crashes on New Zealand roads.
And, because some of the worst examples involve Chinese tourists, questions are being asked about their ability to make the adjustment to New Zealand’s open highways.
The list of the dead includes Mr Baker and Ruby Marris, the 5-year-old Oamaru girl killed in a collision caused by Chinese tourist Jing Cao, who crossed the centre line near Moeraki last year. It includes motorcyclists Grant Roberts and Dennis Pederson, who died near Tarras in November 2012 after being struck by Kejia Zheng’s rental car.
But the list also includes the visitors themselves.
Lijun Ma, of Shanghai, died on the West Coast in 2014, after her driver, Nana Zheng, allowed their rental car to drift over the centre line and then crashed after swerving to avoid a truck.
Three more victims — Wing Fai Chan, Kwai Tei Chong and Yin Wan Ng, all of Hong Kong — died when their vehicle pulled out in front of a truck and trailer unit near Luggate in 2014.It was a problem addressed by Senior Sergeant John Fookes, of Queenstown, during the 2014 inquest into the deaths of Messrs Roberts and Pederson.
The inquest heard the driver who killed them, Miss Zheng (20), had "negligible" driving experience, had never driven on the left-hand side of the road, and was "unlikely" to have ever driven faster than 40kmh, the speed limit on undivided Chinese highways. But her inability to handle New Zealand’s driving environment was not unique, Snr Sgt Fookes told the inquest.
The number of Chinese tourists driving in the Queenstown-Lakes area had increased "noticeably", as had the number of reported crashes and complaints they were involved in, he said.
The common factor appeared to be "the inability of a portion of these drivers to have proper control of their hired motor vehicle’’, he said.
It is a concern that is likely to continue as New Zealand’s tourist surge gathers pace.In the last year, 3.3 million tourists arrived in New Zealand, up 11% on the previous year. By 2022, that number is expected to increase another 5.4%, to 4.5 million visitors a year.
Australia remained by far the largest source of tourists, with 1.3 million visitors to New Zealand in the last year, followed by China in second place, with 404,000 visitors a year. But, despite the large gap between the two groups, Chinese drivers were already challenging Australians for top spot in tourist crash statistics.
Australians were deemed to have been at fault in 225 crashes in the 2011-15 period, while Chinese drivers were blamed for 217 crashes, Ministry of Transport figures showed. And growth forecasts could drive those numbers up.
By 2022, Australian visitor numbers are forecast to increase 27.15% to 1.65 million a year, and China’s by 135%, to 951,000. However, a Ministry spokeswoman cautioned against reading too much into the figures, saying it was "much more complex than a straight ‘visitor numbers’ to ‘crash numbers’ comparison".
"We don’t know how many visitors from each country drive or how long they drive for. Some overseas visitors may self-drive more, as they want to travel the country [and] see the scenery, whereas some spend more time on guided tours or in larger cities and not self-driving."
A focus on Chinese drivers told only part of the story.
Germans, 92,000 of whom visited New Zealand in the last year, were blamed for 213 crashes in the 2011-15 period, followed by Indians (195 crashes), the United Kingdom (152) and the United States (135).
In total, tourists were involved in 2837 crashes on New Zealand roads, including 2143 in which they were deemed to be at fault, from 2011-15. The majority resulted in minor injuries, but 386 left serious injuries and 76 resulted in a fatality. The trend was continuing this year, with another 263 crashes, 13 of them fatal, blamed on tourists so far, the figures showed.
New Zealand Transport Agency southern regional director Jim Harland said, despite the figures, tourists were still only involved in 6% of all crashes in New Zealand, and blamed for causing just 5%. It was a percentage that remained low nationally, despite a dramatically different picture in the lower South Island.
Here, smaller resident populations, higher volumes of tourist traffic and more challenging roads combined to increase the odds of a tourist being involved in a crash, he said. That meant tourists were involved in 37% of all crashes in Westland, 25% in Queenstown-Lakes and 24% in Southland, he said.
But tourists were also, for the most part, crashing for the same reasons New Zealanders did, after failing to see another vehicle, or stop, or getting distracted and losing control, he said. There was "an element of not adapting to local conditions", fatigue or distraction behind some crashes but nothing showing one nationality’s driving was worse than another, he believed.
The headline-grabbing head-on smashes also accounted for only "about 4% or 5%" of all tourist crashes, compared to about 2.5% for New Zealanders.
"Of course, whenever there’s a head-on that causes a lot of emotional reaction in the media, for understandable reasons, because it usually has fatal outcomes."
But the words of caution have not stopped calls for tighter controls.
Last year, the two young sons of Mr Roberts, one of the motorcyclists killed near Tarras, petitioned Parliament unsuccessfully to introduce tests for all tourist drivers. The move was supported at the time by Sarah Baker (28), of Oamaru, the sister of Riley Baker.
She told ODT Insight she still saw a need for tests, even though it was now "a bit late for Riley".
All visitors should have to prove they could cope with New Zealand roads, "so that we’re all safe," she said.
Car safety advocate Clive Matthew-Wilson agreed, saying distraction, fatigue, unfamiliar and challenging roading environments and inadequate infrastructure all combined to put tourists at risk.
New Zealand should revoke the right of Chinese tourists to drive in New Zealand on international licences, given China did not return the favour, he said. All tourists should be tested before being allowed to drive, or the "carnage" on New Zealand’s roads would continue, he predicted.
Tourism Industry Association chief executive Chris Roberts rejected that, saying testing "hundreds of thousands" of tourists each year was "simply not practical".
"It would require enormous resourcing ... and there is no evidence that subjecting visitors to a driving test would enhance safety on the roads."
Associate Transport Minister Craig Foss agreed, saying the idea had been considered before but lacked "merit" and the Government’s focus was on investment to make roads safer for everyone.That included a $600 million package of improvements for 90 high-risk sites in 14 regions, announced in June, and the Visiting Drivers Project, in which 14 agencies — including the NZTA, police, councils and tourist industry representatives — joined forces to improve safety.
Mr Harland said the programme, backed by $25 million over two years, delivered targeted safety messages and roading improvements with a specific focus on Otago, Southland and Westland. That included extra rumble strips, "keep left" arrows and other improvements on key tourist routes and driving information for tourists booking trips, on flights and upon arrival. The aim was to hold or reduce the proportion of tourists involved in crashes, he said.
Rental Vehicle Association chief executive Barry Kidd supported the project but said more spending would be needed in future.
New Zealand’s key tourist routes were among its most challenging and needed to be improved to cope with growing tourist numbers, he said.
Otherwise, the country’s reputation as a safe tourist destination could be at risk, he warned.
"We’re seen as a safe destination in an increasingly dangerous world. We wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardise that."
Police also called for change when, in 2014, Snr Sgt Fookes, of Queenstown, said extra powers were needed to deal with problem tourist drivers. He told the inquest into the deaths of Messrs Roberts and Pederson a legal review meant police could no longer use sections of the Land Transport Act to stop incapable tourist drivers. Increasing police powers would "significantly" improve road safety, he said.
Coroner Richard McElrea agreed, saying there was ‘‘urgent need for legislative change’’ and more powers for police. But, two years on, the situation remains unchanged.
Police would not discuss the issue but Mr Foss said Mr McElrea’s recommendations had been rejected by Ministry staff, who concluded they would be "highly subjective, difficult to enforce and carry a risk of being discriminatory".
That didn’t wash with Miss Baker, who said the Government was still not doing enough.
"I don’t want [Riley Baker] dying for nothing. I want some change that he has not died in vain."
Miss McCarthy agreed but sounded a note of caution about singling out tourists.
"It doesn’t matter who it was that killed Riley, I would still feel exactly the same way.
"I’ve still lost the person I loved."
