Police say driver negligence was behind a spate of road crashes within an hour of each other in the upper North Island yesterday which claimed two lives and left several others, including children, with serious injuries.
"It's been an absolute shocking afternoon and it's so unnecessary," Inspector Darroch Todd said.
"The weather was not a factor ... and it never is, quite frankly. These are all tragic yet preventable crashes where driver error is the cause."
The first accident happened about 4pm at the intersection of State Highway 2 and Kopuku Rd, Maramarua, when a 3-tonne light truck collided with a 10-tonne horse float.
The truck, heading east, rear-ended the horse float as it was making a right hand turn, police said.
The Fire Service had to cut several people from the vehicles and a 35-year-old man died at the scene.
Westpac Rescue Helicopter flew a 5-year-old and a 10-year-old, who were in the light truck, to Starship children's hospital. They had serious head injuries but improved with treatment on the way to hospital.
At the scene, Constable Neale Williams of Huntly police told the Herald that it was too early to tell if the dead man was related to the boys. They were trying to find the mother.
The truck was not fitted with seatbelts and was "totally compacted" on the driver's side.
St John Ambulance took two other injured children to Middlemore Hospital. They had been in the horsefloat being driven by their mother, Lynette Pickard, who said her 12-year-old daughter Angela had received a gash, and her 13-year-old son Cody had a sore back.
Mrs Pickard's 57-year-old mother Evelyn Hodgson, who was also in the float, was sent to hospital for observation. Two ponies inside the float were uninjured.
Port Waikato MP Paul Hutchison said last night that he has been lobbying the Government and Tranist NZ to change the intersection.
About the same time as that crash, a 4WD vehicle and a light truck collided head-on on SH1 in Oakleigh, south of Whangarei.
The Fire Service took 45 minutes to free one person from the wreckage. The male drivers and a third person were taken to Whangarei Hospital with serious to moderate injuries. A driver had serious cuts to his leg.
About 15 minutes later, emergency services were called to a head-on collision on SH1 just south of the old Meremere power station.
The Westpac Waikato Air Ambulance and Tenon Rescue Helicopter, based in Rotorua, were called in to fly two men to Waikato Hospital.
The driver of the south-bound car, a 17-year-old teenage boy from Hamilton, had serious head injuries.
The second driver, a 34-year-old Hamilton man, was also in a serious condition with leg and chest injuries.
Westpac Air Ambulance pilot Grant Bremner said it appeared that the south-bound car crossed the centre line on the main road just before the crash.
A third car that was following also piled into the crash site, he said.
With diversions already in place at nearby SH2, many back-roads through the north Waikato became gridlocked as thousands of commuters used them to return to Auckland at the end of the weekend.
At about 4.40pm, a 37-year-old woman died when the car she was driving failed to take a corner on SH30 at Manawahe, Whakatane, and collided with a tree.
The Fire Service said one person was thrown from the vehicle and a passenger with serious head injuries was taken to Whakatane Hospital.
Also yesterday, a 52-year-old Hamilton man suffered serious spinal injuries when his motorcycle crashed about 1.30pm between Te Anga and Waitomo.
He was battered by a number of tree stumps on the road side.
Three people were airlifted to hospital after this accident at Meremere. Picture / Brett O'Callaghan
Police say driver negligence was behind a spate of road crashes within an hour of each other in the upper North Island yesterday which claimed two lives and left several others, including children, with serious injuries.
"It's been an absolute shocking afternoon and it's so unnecessary," Inspector Darroch Todd said.
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