Aged couple die in crash on notorious highway

Yesterday's accident was only metres from a white cross marking another fatal. Picture / Greg Bowker

An elderly couple were killed when their car and a ute collided in the Dome Valley, north of Auckland yesterday.

Sergeant Bede Haughey said the couple, believed to be in their 70s, were heading south along State Highway 1 when a witness saw their car cross the centreline and collide with a northbound ute.

Their silver Citroen ended up in a ditch, against a bank on the edge of the northbound lane. The ute ended up slammed against the frontseat passenger's door.

The driver of the ute, who is understood to a Warkworth man, was not badly hurt but the couple were dead by the time emergency workers arrived.

The accident happened on one of the North Island's most deadly stretches of roads - and just metres away from a white cross marking the site of another fatal accident.

Mr Haughey said it was the third such accident in the Dome Valley that he was aware of this year.

According to the Ministry of Transport there were nine crashes, which claimed 12 lives, in the Dome Valley between 2001 and last year.

A 2004 study ranked the Warkworth to Wellsford stretch of road as the fifth worst in the country.

It came in just behind the deadly stretch of State Highway 2 - Pokeno to Mangatawhiri - where 33 people died in 26 crashes between 2001 and 2005.

A Road Safety Task Force, including police, roading authorities and the local district council, was set up last year to investigate safety along the Dome Valley section of highway.

That led to the Chevron curve indicator signs being installed on all moderate and severe curves and the edge lines of the road being widened to 200mm. The accidents have not stopped as a result of the improvements.

Mr Haughey said police had targeted the area as a high crash zone and large billboards were put at each end of the Valley warning motorists to take care.

The names of the victims are expected to be known today.