Man hit by car was lying on road - police

A 27-year-old Southland man had been lying on the road before he was struck and killed by a four-wheel drive on Sunday, police have confirmed.

Cameron Alan Murray Hartley died after being hit by a Mitsubishi four-wheel drive on the Mossburn-Lumsden Highway near Lumsden, 84km north of Invercargill, about 7.25am.

Police said the farm worker had left a house in Lumsden with a friend sometime after 4.30am, intending to walk home to nearby Mossburn.

A nearby resident, who asked not to be named, said the man may have been walking home so he would not have to drink drive.

There was talk he had fallen asleep on the road.

"It's quite sad really...he's a young fella, he hasn't been here long. From all accounts he's been in the district two months."

Police have spoken to the occupants of the four-wheel drive.

They would like to hear from anybody who saw two men, either together or separately, walking north along State Highway 6 or west along SH94 between 4.30am and 7.25am.

The death was among five on the roads on the weekend.

An elderly man and his wife died after he drove the wrong way down Auckland's Northwestern Motorway on Saturday, causing a six-vehicle crash.

Ewen Donaldson, 86, and Dulce Maria Donaldson, aged in her 60s, died after their car crashed into an oncoming car, causing it to flip several times before landing on its roof, about 8.30pm.

Three other cars crashed as they swerved to avoid a head-on collision.

Police yesterday confirmed Mr Donaldson's driver's licence had expired in 2007.

He had suffered a stroke five years ago and friends said he should not have been driving, it was reported today.

A Tauranga teenager was killed when he was thrown from a car that crashed off a bridge in the Bay of Plenty on Sunday.

Judas Ace Witeri, 18, died when the car he was a passenger in lost control and crossed the centre line, crashing through the steel barriers of the bridge in Te Puke.

He was found beneath the car, which landed on its roof four metres below, while five people were injured.

A Timaru Boy's High School student, Nathan Thorn, 16, was killed when struck by a truck in South Canterbury on State Highway 1 near Normanby, just south of Timaru, about 2.30am Sunday.

Witnesses told police they saw a man walking in the unlit passing lanes.

In west Auckland, a six-year-old girl suffered life-threatening head injuries after being struck by a car while crossing Great North Rd with her grandmother in suburban Henderson shortly after 11am Sunday.

She was stable in Auckland's Starship Hospital yesterday.

- NZPA