Puketona Rd crash adds more distance to Bay of Islands detour

The Puketona Rd crash scene saw traffic banked up before a detour was put in place through Haruru and Waitangi. Photo / Lindy Laird

A woman needed to be cut from the car she had been driving after colliding with an oncoming vehicle in the Bay of Islands.

The crash happened at the Waitangi end of Puketona Rd around 11.20am yesterday.

The second car was shunted off the road by the impact, with the driver, who had been heading toward Waitangi, also suffering only superficial injuries.

The woman in the first car was not seriously injured but was taken by ambulance to Bay of Islands hospital in Kawakawa for a check-up.

The crash scene blocked the road and saw traffic having to detour around the back road between Haruru and Waitangi for at least an hour.

With the short Lemons Hill stretch of State Highway 11 between Kawakawa and Opua still closed most of each day, yesterday's diversion added an extra 20 minutes to the long detour already in place from Kawakawa, through Puketona to Waitangi.

Kerikeri roading Police Sergeant Tony Dunckley said the driver of the oncoming vehicle which was shunted off the road had seen the approaching car veer across the road, when the driver braked and almost completely stopped before the impact.

Dunckley said both drivers looked ''a little banged up'' from the airbags but probably escaped serious injury as both vehicles were new and had absorbed the impact.