The second part of a Coroner's Hearing into the deaths of Joanna Lam and Connor Hayes is underway today in Greymouth.
Mr Hayes and Ms Lam were travelling along the Haast Pass in a severe storm in September last year, when their campervan was washed into the river by a landslide of trees and debris.
In a list of questions sent to the hearing by Connor Hayes' father, highway contractor William Caird was asked why he let their campervan through after he had recommended the highway be closed.
Mr Caird told the hearing he thought the campervan was past the most difficult part of the road and considered they were safe.
Mr Hayes, 25, and Ms Lam, 24, died when the landslide pushed their rented motorhome off the road into a swollen Haast River.
Ms Lam's body later washed up on a beach about 55km away, but Mr Hayes' body was never found.
Wreckage from the campervan was recovered from the river during a massive search operation.
Today's hearing also heard the time it took before the pair were reported missing had curtailed the police's investigation into their deaths.
Police were not notified until Ms Lam failed to turn up for her first day at Nelson Hospital a week later.
Serious Crash Unit investigator Simon Burberry said most slips on the Haast Pass had been cleared by that time, meaning there was no evidence that could progress an investigation beyond reasonable speculation.
Police are calling on the NZTA to improve the information it gives foreign tourists who rent cars in New Zealand.
Mr Burberry said current information failed to inform overseas drivers of how adverse weather conditions could affect certain roads.
He says some tourists might feel confident in bad weather in their own environment, but New Zealand roads were much more unpredictable.
On February 20, Coroner David Crerar issued an initial finding on the deaths which he hoped would "satisfy the legal requirements for both families".
Given that Mr Hayes' body has never been found, he was "satisfied to quite a high degree" both he, and Ms Lam, died near Diana Falls on September 10 last year after their campervan was "struck by avalanche of trees, rocks and associated debris" which pushed them off the road, down a cliff, into the Haast River, causing them to die from "high energy impact injuries" to the head, chest, spine, and limbs.
