The man who died when his scooter was involved in a collision with a truck in Mount Maunganui has been named.
Kevin William Akroyd, 74, of Mount Maunganui, died after the scooter he had been riding along Totara St towards Hewletts Rd was involved in the crash with a heavy truck and trailer unit.
Emergency services were called to the scene about 9.30am on Saturday.
Police extended their sympathies to his friends and family.
The serious crash unit will be investigating the crash.
Acting head of road policing Sergeant Wayne Hunter said Akroyd had been riding a scooter in the cycle lane on Totara St when the truck turned right into the accessway of a Seeka cool store property near Waimarie St.
He died at the scene.
Police shut down the busy Mount Maunganui road for three hours on Saturday as members of the serious crash unit investigated. Traffic was diverted at the intersections of Totara St and Hull Rd, and Totara St and Hewletts Rd.
Hunter said the incident had been captured on CCTV footage, which had been reviewed by officers. The truck had been carrying kiwifruit and its driver has been offered victim support.
Fire and Emergency NZ Tauranga senior station officer Len Sabin said firefighters also responded. Firefighters used heavy-duty equipment to lift the truck to help retrieve the man's body.
No one from Seeka could be reached for comment. Another person suffered critical injuries yesterday when the car the person was travelling in crashed on State Highway 29a near the Maungatapu on-ramp. The highway was closed for a couple of hours, with traffic being diverted along Hewletts Rd instead.
At 10.25pm on Saturday a woman was trapped in her car on Churchill Rd, Judea, when the lines from the power pole her car had hit fell on to the road. Powerco and firefighters helped to clear the scene. The woman was taken to Tauranga Hospital with moderate injuries.
The scooter rider's death brought the national road toll to 113 so far this year.
At the same time last year, 95 people had been killed on New Zealand roads.
On Saturday, another person was killed when the car he was travelling in was involved in a collision with a milk tanker near Timaru. On Friday, the sole occupant of a car that crashed on SH5, near the Waikato settlement of Tirau, died. That incident was the second fatal crash in the Waikato in two days.
On Thursday, Karapiro man Gregory William Brown, 43, died when the ute he was driving collided with a truck on Tirau Rd, Karapiro, just before 4.30am.
One person was also killed after a two-car crash in Botany, east Auckland, on Thursday afternoon.
Yvarn Manaia Te Pania, 24, and James Alexander Hamiora, 26, died on Monday after the Subaru they were in crashed with a people-mover driven by an American tourist on SH10 in Northland.
That crash also left another person with serious injuries and two others had broken bones.
The scooter rider suffered serious injuries and was taken to hospital.
