KEY POINTS:
A tour bus and car have collided in Waikato, bringing the weekend road toll to six.
Inspector Turepu Keenan of the police northern communications centre said the 33-seater bus collided with a car this afternoon on State Highway 27 at Patetonga, 32km north-west of Morrinsville.
Nobody on the bus was injured but the occupant of the car died in the crash.
Emergency services, including the serious crash unit, were at the scene and diversions were in place.
The death was the sixth fatality on New Zealand roads today, in a bleak start to the weekend.
In the first fatal accident of the weekend a woman passenger was killed when a car rolled and she was thrown clear near Dargaville shortly after 1am yesterday.
Inspector Willie Taylor from the police northern communications centre said the woman died at the scene. He said no other vehicle was involved and it rolled on a straight section of road.
Nearly 90 minutes later two people died at 2.27am when a car hit a power pole on State Highway 5 at Ohaaki near Rotorua.
Sergeant Dave Frazer of Taupo police said a BMW car heading south failed to negotiate a moderate bend and slid into the pole.
Reporoa men James Andrew Rameka, 17, and Phillip Charles Day, 25, were killed in the crash. They were passengers in the front and rear seats on the left hand side of the vehicle, Mr Frazer said.
The driver, 22, was not hurt and another rear seat passenger received minor injuries.
Later this morning two people were killed and another critically injured in a two car collision at 9.35am on State Highway 73 at Kirwee, 37km west of Christchurch.
The occupants of one of the cars - a 30-year-old Asian woman and a two-year-old child - died at the scene, Inspector Warren Kemp of the police southern communications centre said.
Two people from the other vehicle were hospitalised, one in a serious condition but with injuries not believed to be life threatening.
- NZPA
