Death fears become a tragic reality

By PAUL YANDALL

Donald Kelly had tried for years to get drivers to slow down on the road outside of his home.

The week before Christmas, he told relatives it was only a matter of time before someone was killed on Kokopu Block Rd in Maungatapere, near Whangarei.

Three days after Christmas, the 54-year-old farmer was hit by a car and killed two metres from his front gate as he crossed the road he feared.

He was one of 17 people who died on the country's roads in 13 accidents during the Christmas-New Year holiday period, which officially ended at 8 am yesterday. The toll is one under that of the same period last year.

Of the 17 victims, 15 died on rural roads.

Mr Kelly's wife, Beryl, said her husband was crossing the road on his farmbike when he was hit. She said her husband called the road a "speed track" that people often travelled along at 150 km/h.

"He was always warning people to slow down. There are kids here and he really feared for their safety."

She said neighbours and friends made a plea at his funeral for drivers to slow down.

"People have to learn that lives are being lost. We have to do something now. I don't want him to die in vain."

The most horrific accident was in the Waikato on Christmas Eve.

Four relatives died and another was critically hurt when the car they were in and a van collided on State Highway 1, between Hamilton and Cambridge.

Among the dead were a couple and their 4-year-old daughter.

The sole survivor of the crash, Janine Brooks, of Auckland, suffered serious injuries in the crash.

Her father, Brian Brooks, said that the tragedy had hit the family hard.

"We're just some damned ordinary people who have gone through a load of grief and need to get the sole survivor through it," he said.

"It's going to be long time before she's all right."

The other accident involving multiple deaths was in South Taranaki, where sharemilker Stephen Reed and his 15-year-old son, Matthew, died in a head-on collision on December 23.

Mr Reed's wife, Jennie, said her husband had gone shopping for a new motocross bike for Matthew.

"They went to try the bike out at the track. He called me from there to say they were coming home. They never made it."

She was now left to raise the couple's two surviving children alone.

One of the most notorious danger spots in the North Island claimed another victim.

Mavis Jack of Glenfield was driving to her holiday bach at Otama Beach, on the Coromandel, when her car crashed on State Highway 2 at Maramarua on New Year's Eve.

Her daughter, Verneen Matthews, said her mother had left home early that day to beat the traffic. The family knew how dangerous the stretch of road could be.

"My son was nearly involved in an accident there on March 3. He was all right, thank God."

The 22km stretch between Mangatawhiri and Maramarua - a link between Auckland and the east coast - has now claimed 15 lives in four years.

The 17th and last victim of the official holiday road toll was David Kenneth Dunlea, 21, of Kaikoura, who died after being thrown from a car that rolled several times in a Kaikoura street early yesterday.

He was the first of five people to die on the roads yesterday.

Investigators are using dental records to identify the sole occupant of a van that crashed and burst into flames in Invercargill about 8.30 am.





A teenage boy was knocked off his bike and killed on State Highway 45 at Warea, in south Taranaki, yesterday.

He was Jason David White, of New Plymouth, who was on holiday at Warea.

Senior Sergeant Selwyn Wansbrough, of New Plymouth, said the boy was cycling with two cousins when he was hit by a van.

He was not wearing a helmet.

A person was killed in the Manawatu Gorge yesterday afternoon and the fifth death occurred when a car ran into a bridge at Matatoki, 10km southeast of Thames, about 6 pm yesterday.

The police national road safety manager, Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald, said 80 per cent of all roads deaths happened on open and rural roads - and speed, rather than alcohol, was the main factor.

An 11-year-old boy cyclist who died in a collision with a car northwest of Auckland on Tuesday afternoon was Terebwatia Amuera, of Riverhead, where the accident occurred.

One survivor of a holiday car smash, surf club lifesaver Mark Finch, was still fighting for his life in Wellington Hospital yesterday after being involved in a head-on car collision on Monday.

A gift to the 18-year-old from the grateful mother of a little girl he rescued earlier that day remained unopened at the Paekakariki surf clubrooms.

The surf club captain, Johnny Clough, said the card and present would be delivered to Mr Finch.

"As soon as he's strong enough to take visitors, we'll take it to him," said Mr Clough.

"He helped to rescue two girls that day.

"He was really happy."