Two die in high-speed crash

Hardly recognisable as a car, the wreckage is lifted off the road near Gisborne. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Two young people have died in a high-speed horror crash that comes as the Government prepares to consider extensive changes to our road rules.

Three others sustained serious injuries when the car all five were travelling in smashed into a concrete block and spun around after an overtaking manouevre went wrong on State Highway 2 near Gisborne late on Friday night.

"It would have been an absolutely huge impact," said Fire Service area commander Charlie Turei. "The front of the car had completely disintegrated. It was just completely mangled to nothing."

The car's registered owner, Balbir Singh, said the dead man was his friend Ajay Pal Singh, 23.

A 14-year-old girl was also killed but her identity was unconfirmed last night.

Both the dead were passengers, killed when the driver lost control while overtaking on Makaraka Rd, travelling towards Gisborne.

Balbir Singh said he had just sold the car to Ajay - the deal so fresh that his friend had not had a chance to change ownership.

Three others in the Subaru Impreza, aged 14, 19 and 24, suffered serious injuries and had to be cut from the wreckage before being taken to Gisborne Hospital. Senior Constable Viard Sheridan said police were investigating whether alcohol and speed were factors.

Balbir Singh said he was very sad to lose Ajay. "He never drank alcohol and never smoked."

Turei said the impact of the car was so powerful it ripped free the roadside concrete block and flung it 25m along the road.

He said one of the dead was still alive when he arrived and another girl was screaming for help.

"There appeared to be so much speed on this occasion and, when you hit something stationary at those speeds, it's inevitable that the people inside are going to suffer massive internal and external injuries."

The highway, which connects Gisborne and Opotiki, remained closed most of yesterday while police investigated.

The deaths take this year's road toll to 254, up on 226 for the same seven-month period last year.

The toll for 2008 was 369. The Government's target for 2010 is 300.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce said last night the Government was about to consider 60 road safety "interventions" that had the potential to save lives.

They included cutting speed limits, lowering the blood-alcohol limit for drivers and raising the driving age.

He said the points were studied in a major review due back this month and focused on seeing if existing road rules should be changed.

Joyce said any changes would come after input from the average motorist. "I'm very strong on the fact that it's the public's roading system, and anything that you do has to have significant buy-in from road users."

The weight of evidence is growing to show that cutting the road toll has a huge financial benefit. New research from Sydney University's Professor David Hensher shows the cost of a road death is four times higher than previously believed.

The research - which is applicable to New Zealand - showed that each road death costs about $7.5 million, rather than the $1.5m currently used.

It means the cost of last year's road toll to New Zealand was $2.74 billion.

Road safety experts believe more drastic action is needed to reduce the road toll.

Dr Dorothy Begg of University of Otago's Injury Prevention Research Unit said she "hasn't a hope" the toll will drop below 300 deaths each year without major changes to road rules, particularly targeting young drivers.

Begg said lowering the blood alcohol limit from 0.8g per 100ml to 0.5 could also save lives. Speed limits across the country also needed to change: "There are certainly some roads in New Zealand where having a 100km/h speed limit is ridiculous."

But Begg said changing driver behaviour was incredibly hard. "Education on its own is an absolute waste of time. It needs to be followed up with enforcement."

Road safety campaigner Clive Matthew-Wilson said the Government was caught up in trying to change individual driver behaviour to lower the road toll.

Instead of blaming "the nut behind the wheel", it should be focused on taking simple steps to change the outcome of bad driving to protect the rest of us.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge barrier was an example of a simple solution that had saved lives. Without similar changes, "the high road toll is inevitable".

A 35-year-old is dead after his 4WD overturned and landed on him at his Taranaki property yesterday afternoon.

Sergeant Kim Severinsen, of Hawera police, said the man was the sole occupant of the vehicle, which he was driving on his flat section at Normanby, 70km south-east of New Plymouth.

It appeared the tyres dug into the soft ground and caused the vehicle to roll over. The man was not buckled in. Police were notifying next of kin.

The death does not count as part of the road toll because it happened on private property.