Speed, alcohol and not wearing a seat belt contributed to the death of mother-of-three Aroha Ormsby, the only road fatality of the Queen's Birthday holiday weekend, police said.
The single vehicle crash happened on Beach Rd at Tokomaru Bay, 91km north of Gisborne around 5.30am Sunday.
Ms Ormsby, 28, was the only
passenger in the car but was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the vehicle during the crash. The car left the road and hit a large object, probably a boulder, before ending up on the beach.
Ms Ormsby and the driver of the car had been drinking at a party all night about a kilometre down the road from where they crashed.
The driver, in his mid-20s, was being spoken to by police. He was injured in the crash but his condition was not serious.
Ms Ormsby died at the scene, police said.
Police said they were ``extremely disheartened'' that the messages around all three main causes of fatal crashes high speed, drinking and driving and no seat belts were a feature in ``this needless loss of young life''.
