French tourist in court after fatal smash

A French tourist will appear in court today after a fatal crash in Waikato on Saturday.

Motorcyclist James Selwyn Aitken, 38, died following a collision with a car driven by the tourist near Te Kuiti on Saturday about 2.30pm.

The tourist was allegedly driving on the wrong side of the road.

Mr Aitken's wife, who was riding pillion, suffered leg, pelvis and spinal injuries and is in Waikato Hospital.

Waikato road policing manager Inspector Leo Tooman said today said the car driver, who was accompanied by four other family members, would face charges relating to careless driving causing death and careless driving causing injury when he appeared in Hamilton District Court today.

Mr Aitken was one of four people who died on the roads at the weekend, three of them motorcyclists.

Auckland motorcyclist Jae Hyun Ahn, a 35-year-old was killed on a one-way bridge, on State Highway 25 in the Coromandel, about 3km south of Tairua, on Saturday.

Mr Ahn collided with two stationary cars, police said.

A 48-year-old New Plymouth man died after losing control of his Triumph Daytona on State Highway 43, about 26km from Stratford, on Saturday.

The man, who appeared to lose control of his motorbike, failed to take a bend and crashed through a fence into a paddock, police said.

A 66-year-old man died after his car collided with a power pole in Invercargill yesterday afternoon. Police said the man seemingly veered off the road, into the pole in the 50kph area. He died later in hospital.

Police would release his name later today, a spokeswoman said.

- NZPA