Take it easy, drivers told as toll mounts

The driver of the truck says the man in the saloon headed for him, leaving him nowhere to go. Photo / Steven McNicholl

Police appealed to motorists yesterday to stay safe as they returned home, after another two deaths on the roads.

Last night, the holiday weekend road toll stood at seven, one down on last year.

On Sunday night about 10, a woman was killed when her car struck a motorway bridge pillar on State Highway 2 near Tauranga.

Yesterday about 2.30am, a pedestrian died after being hit by a car on Great North Rd in Pt Chevalier, Auckland. Police spoke to the driver but said it was too early to say if alcohol or speed were factors.

National road policing manager Superintendent Paula Rose asked people to keep their speeds down as they made the trip home.

"The aim for police is to help everyone make it home safely from their Labour Weekend break. To do this, all of us need to take care," she said.

However, there inevitably would be accidents before the holiday period ended at 6am today.

"The sad reality is there will be more crashes between now and 6am Tuesday morning, when the holiday weekend [toll period] finishes, but the real focus for us is to make sure that we keep those right down to a minimum."

Ms Rose said the "niceties had to be forgotten" when staff were forced to wash blood from the road.

In other weekend crashes, a man died in Napier on Saturday morning, a man died near Wellsford and two people died near Hastings on Sunday morning, and a female motorcyclist died near Wanganui that night.

Fatal crash 'took the side completely off his car'

A man involved in a fatal collision near Wellsford on Sunday says there was nothing he could do to avoid it.

Phil Liddell was driving his truck north on State Highway 1 when he saw a car come straight towards him.

"It was as if we had a target on us." He knew he had to take action to get out of the way.

He moved to the left, hitting a barrier that protected him from a 10m drop into a culvert.

"But I couldn't get any further over. When he hit me he went down the side of the truck, and took the side completely off his car, took the wheels off."

A friend was travelling 80m behind and witnessed the accident. "He could have been involved in it too."

Mr Liddell said he had been told the driver stopped in Whangarei before the crash and continued on south. The dead man, whose name was not available, and his partner had been in the Bay of Islands at a family party the night before.