Police said it was understood he had been travelling to work just after 4am when he crossed the centre line and become airborne, hitting the opposite bank before rolling into the Karamu Stream.
More recently, on February 3 last year, a 25-year-old Flaxmere woman was killed and three others, including Suzi Merson, were seriously injured in a head-on collision at the same road bend.
It took emergency services 45 minutes to cut Merson from the car wreck and she went on to have her left leg amputated from below the knee.
The Havelock North woman said her heart sank when she heard the sirens ringing out yesterday."When you hear those noises I think, 'Oh God, that's going to ruin someone's life'. At first you think it's not an accident but then it's very obvious with the noises you hear.
"It's not nice. It was never nice to know before [the crash] but now it's a little bit more to the bone thinking someone else has to go through that."
Merson was unsure whether reducing the speed limit would stop crashes on the stretch of road.
"I don't even think it's a dangerous piece of road, there's nothing wrong with it.
"If one doesn't give way at an intersection or someone's going to fast around a corner ... I still don't know that if you make things slower the idiots who do dumb things will listen."
In light of last February's crash, her family treated the road differently, she said.
"We'd sort of made our own little pact that you can't really do 100km/h on that road, especially in the afternoon, because of the tractors and trucks coming out of the packing houses. But I guess every accident is different."
Today police asked motorists to be patient and avoid the area as a section of Longlands Rd was closed and local diversions were in place.
The serious crash unit had been advised, police said.
