No seatbelts on trio killed in crash

Three people who died in a collision with a logging truck in south Waikato yesterday were not believed to have been wearing seatbelts at the time.

The crash was one of three fatal accidents in which six people died across the country yesterday, with five of those deaths occurring on Waikato roads.

Three people died and one was critically injured after a car and a logging truck collided on State Highway 1 north of Tokoroa about 3.50pm.

All four, believed to be of Asian descent, were travelling in the car.

It is understood the male front seat passenger, who was airlifted to hospital, was the only person wearing a seatbelt at the time of the collision.

The car was believed to have spun out of control before smashing into the truck.

Police said the car crossed the centre line but the cause was yet to be established.

The female driver of the car and two rear-seat passengers, one male and one female, died at the scene. Police confirmed both in the rear were not wearing seatbelts.

The truck driver was shaken but not injured.

Police confirmed the car's passengers were foreign nationals but said no further details, including their nationality, would be released until next of kin had been notified.

SH1 was closed in to the evening as emergency services worked to free the trapped bodies from the wreckage. Diversions were put in place at Wiltsdown Rd and Rollett Rd.

Barely two hours after the triple fatality, another person died in a crash on the SH1 Northern Motorway in Auckland, between Greville Rd and Oteha Valley Rd.

"A four-wheel-drive vehicle has left the motorway, crashed down a bank into a couple of lamp posts," a police spokesman said.

"The driver, despite CPR attempts, is deceased at the scene."

Earlier yesterday, two women died in a head-on collision near Thames, on SH25 at the intersection with Pipiroa Rd, between Waitakaruru and Kopu.

A Thames-bound Mazda Demio and a Volkswagen Passat travelling north collided about 7.45am, with the two women in the Mazda dying from their injuries.

It was initially believed both women were Australian, however, police later said it had been established that one of the women was a New Zealand national, and the other was Australian.

Work to formally identify the women and notify their families was underway, police said.

A woman driving the Passat, its sole occupant, was freed by firefighters and airlifted to hospital by helicopter in a serious to critical condition, Sergeant Dave Reid of the Waikato district command centre said.

The busy rural highway, which links Coromandel to Auckland, was closed until mid-afternoon while a lengthy extraction process was completed.

The triple fatality at Tokoroa comes after a similar crash involving a logging truck two days before Christmas, in which four people were killed.

Two adults and two children travelling in a Range Rover died, and an 8-year-old boy was critically injured, in the collision on SH1 near Waipu at Uretiti on December 23.

The Range Rover made a U-turn from the left-hand side of the road, into the path of the fully-laden northbound logging truck, police said at the time.

By Patrice Dougan of NZME. News Service


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