A typical night out at the pub has ended in tragedy after a young man was killed when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a power pole.
The man was one of 10 people to die in a horror 48 hours on North Island roads.
Warren Fitness - who was known to friends as W.O.F due to his name and his love of cars - was drinking at the Kaukapakapa Hotel on Friday night before getting into his old Fiat. He left about 11.30pm to drive home down a darkened SH16 to Helensville.
Waitemata serious crash unit constable Paul Hayward said the 21-year-old skidded off the road on to loose gravel and, in a move which turned fatal, over-corrected his steering.
The car spun on to the opposite side of the road, crashed into a power pole and rolled on to its side where Fitness fell from the vehicle. He was killed instantly.
"The impact moved the concrete power pole, it actually tore it out of the ground and moved it a few feet."
Kaukapakapa Hotel bar manager Alie White expressed shock yesterday, saying Fitness had drunk only "a couple of Woodies".
"He usually sleeps in his car but he didn't drink a lot," White said. "He just cracks a Woody [bourbon and cola] and sits on that. He definitely wasn't intoxicated."
Friend and housemate Ben Taylor said they regularly went to the local pub, but not to get drunk. "It's just a really nice social community and they are all a really great bunch of people," Taylor said.
Family and friends gathered at his sister's house in Avondale yesterday.
The string of road tragedies started at 7pm on Thursday, when a car crossed the centre line and ploughed into a tree in McClaren Falls Rd in Omanawa, near Tauranga.
Driver Heath Gregory Bell, 43, and Steve Lawrence Renwick, 42, were thrown from the Ford Falcon V8 when it snapped on impact - as their friends watched in horror.
Bell died at the scene and his passenger suffered multiple injuries to his head and body. He died in Tauranga Hospital a short time later.
Friends of the victims, who did not want to be named, said they saw the driver lose control and hit the tree. "The car just shattered," said one. "It looked like an explosion."
Acting Senior Sergeant Cameron Anderson said speed was a factor.
The same night, Ngaroimata "Chubbs" Kenrick had been celebrating his 57th birthday with family and friends in Hastings.
After the party, he and cousin Phillip Kenrick made a snap decision to go to Auckland with another cousin Wi Hurinui, 52, to see his daughter.
Hours later Chubbs Kenrick and Hurinui were dead. The 4WD left SH5 at Rangitaiki, south of Taupo, at 2.20am. Police said it rolled, throwing two people out before landing on its roof and catching fire.
Yesterday morning the crash claimed a third victim, a friend who died from internal injuries, according to a family member.
"It was Chubbs' birthday. They had just come from the party - he had been drinking, the driver was sober, as far as we know," she said.
Three others were injured, including Paul Kenrick's brother John, who helped pull two trapped passengers from the 4WD, before desperately searching in the dark for his brother - later found dead in a drain only metres away.
"He's our hero," said the family member. "He saved my brother, he pulled them all out but he couldn't find his own (brother) until the explosion. It illuminated everything and he saw his clothes in the distance."
In the afternoon, two people were killed in a head-on-crash on SH56 at Longburn, near Palmerston North. Police said a car overtook a right-turning vehicle and collided head-on with an oncoming car.
Another driver was killed when his car collided with a van on SH1 between Tawa and the Churton Park turn-off, just after 8.30pm Friday.
A second person in the crash died in Wellington Hospital early yesterday.
- Chloe Johnson, Abby Gillies and APNZ
