Tourist dies in smash

INVESTIGATORS: Police, firefighters and St John Ambulance personnel at the scene of a fatal crash in Waimarama Rd North yesterday. A farmer opened up a paddock (inset) so traffic could be diverted from the accident scene.PHOTOS/DUNCAN BROWN

A Scottish tourist was killed and his wife and daughter seriously injured when the vehicle they were in left one of Hawke's Bay's most patrolled stretches of road, clipped an oncoming vehicle and hit a tree near Havelock North yesterday.

The man, aged 68, was the driver of the vehicle, which was travelling towards Havelock North, with his 65-year-old wife and their 29-year-old daughter, who police Eastern District Command Centre officer Clint Adamson said was also from Scotland but lived in Havelock North. The women were last night in Hawke's Bay Hospital with serious but not life-threatening injuries.

With police unsure how much family had become aware of the tragedy, no names were being released last night.

The crash happened in fine weather about 4.30pm on a Waimarama Rd bend about 1.8km east of the Craggy Range Winery, and 4.2km east of the intersection with Te Mata Rd, Havelock North.

It was a miraculous escape for the other driver whose vehicle appeared to have been clipped as it passed between the tree and the other vehicle which was coming out of the bend. He veered off the road, missing other trees before coming to a stop. Unhurt, and with his vehicle not badly damaged he was able to drive from the scene soon after police arrived. The lower half of the North Island, including the Eastern, Central and Wellington police districts, escaped without road fatality during the 11-day Christmas-New Year holiday period, and the fatality was the first on Hawke's Bay roads for seven weeks.

But it was the crash Hawke's Bay police had been dreading, on a portion of road targeted by patrols since the start of summer.

Sergeant Kris Shadbolt said at the scene: "We've patrolled this road like you wouldn't believe. It's unbelievable, really. It's quite annoying, and sad."

Police were early last night unaware of any witnesses apart from those in the vehicles.

A registered nurse travelling on the road was one of the first on the scene, as was a Hastings policewoman who had been heading towards Waimarama.

A major traffic snarl-up, with increasingly heavy traffic apparently mainly travelling both to and from Waimarama and Ocean Beaches, was averted when a farmer opened gates and created a detour through paddocks alongside the Tukituki River.

At least eight police vehicles were at the scene for some time, along with fire appliances from Havelock North and Hastings, and two ambulance crews attended.

The road stayed closed for about four hours, the dead man in the vehicle against the tree as police investigated. No skid marks were apparent and nothing immediately indicated why the vehicle crossed the road.

The Bay's last road fatality occurred on November 19 when a man was hit by a vehicle on State Highway 2 south of Hastings after apparently leaping from an ambulance in which he had been a patient.

That was the third on Hastings district roads in a week and took the 2014 toll in the area from Wairoa to Tararua to 20, more than three times the historic low of six the previous year.