Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Family urge new foreign driver laws

By Doug Laing
Hawkes Bay Today·
17 Jun, 2016 09:15 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

The family of Eskdale crash victim Rhys Middleton have found just about the only way they can to try to overcome their grief - by trying to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Speaking after errant driver Jieling Xiao was jailed yesterday for the dangerous driving causing Mr Middleton's death on February 7 this year, bereaved mother Judy Richards said: "Rhys' death doesn't need to be in vain. It's got to be a cause. It has to be, it's what keeps us going."

Now, after a string of tragedies involving foreign-driver culpability on New Zealand roads the family, from Tauranga, is calling for new arrivals in New Zealand to have to pass restricted driver testing before being allowed to hit the road in this country, and then be allowed to drive only while displaying a "V" plate as a visiting driver.

In a letter read to the court, Xiao agreed and, accepting full responsibility for the tragedy, said that if such controls had been in place then the tragedy in which she drove her newly purchased Toyota Rav 4 into a motorbike ridden by Mr Middleton on State Highway 5 at Eskdale would never have happened.

Judge Bridget Mackintosh described the driving as "grossly incompetent".

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Afterwards father Michael Middleton described the outcome of the sentencing as "fantastic", although nothing could ever make up for the loss of his son and fellow motorcyclist.

The judge had pointed out that if home detention had been granted, Xiao could have been deported almost "right away", he said. But of the jail sentence he said: "It's setting benchmark for New Zealand that this should not happen any more. It's time for change.

"This shouldn't have happened. This is a very, very rare accident. Actually, I won't call it an accident. It was an incident."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He noted the increasingly high rates at which newly arrived visitors were responsible, and said while it seemed Chinese appeared the most frequent, the drivers were those who had come from driving on wide open "eight-lane" highways in their own countries, with little to no experience of the driving conditions facing them in New Zealand.

The family, having started a petition (vplates.co.nz) say: "It is time that we stood up for ourselves and try to make a difference. We need to save New Zealanders lives."

They say they want the Government to stop putting the issue in "the too-hard basket" and added: "Reality is that Kiwis are dying at the hands of overseas drivers, and what we are about is to put forward ideas which could help with this issue."

The extent of the problem was highlighted during the sentencing by Crown prosecutor Steve Manning who, using three similar cases for reference, said he had researched other cases involving recently arrived foreign tourists.

"There are many," he said. "It was a tragedy for all concerned. Tragically, it was avoidable."

In a victim impact statement read to the court on his behalf, Michael Middleton described the impact by saying how he could not face going into the new workshop he'd had built before the crash, and which was to have been so much the future of his life with his son.

In it is the wreckage of the $6000 bike his son was riding and there's also his riding gear, to be burnt when the time comes.

"Forgiveness is not an option," he told Xiao, who sat tearfully in the dock beside an interpreter.

Later, after being asked how he felt towards Xiao, he would say: "I feel sorry, but what went down today had to happen.

"There is remorse there, I just can't accept that remorse yet."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Bereaved mother Judy Richards looked directly at Xiao as she told how her "zest for life has gone" after the death of her son.

"The pain of losing a child is so bad it is almost too bad to bear," she said, telling of how she no longer socialises outside the family and hasn't had a proper night's sleep since February 7, and has difficulty remembering some things, which she puts down to the trauma.

Son Ryan, who had been riding just ahead of Rhys, told of how he would never forget the crash scene he encountered as he realised what had happened and turned back to try to help save his brother's life.

He remembered seeing Xiao at the scene, and told her in court he believed that even if the crash hadn't happened, nothing would have stopped her trying to complete the 219km drive to Rotorua.

Laura Settle, who would have married Rhys Middleton next February, said her life felt "empty and incomplete".

She had to start again without Rhys, who she said had "paid with his life in what was a totally avoidable situation".

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

According to latest annual statistics, the Overseas Drivers in Crash report, there were 16 fatal crashes in 2014 involving overseas drivers in New Zealand, resulting in 22 deaths.

All but one of those crashes was caused by the driver from overseas.

Of the 100 serious-injury crashes involving visitors 78 were caused by the overseas drivers, and of the 436 minor-injury crashes involving visitor driving, 322 were the fault of the visitor.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction

Premium
Opinion

Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble

Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction
Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction

Artist follows in his grandmother's footsteps to craft a piece for Bay wine auction.

17 Jul 06:00 PM
Premium
Premium
Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble
Opinion

Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble

17 Jul 06:00 PM
Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay
Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay

17 Jul 06:02 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP