Dunedin couple's cars caught in 'chain reaction' crash

Couple Callum Lynch-Hines (21) and Latafale Auva'a (22) with their damaged cars after a four-vehicle crash on the one-way south in Dunedin yesterday. Photo '/ Otago Daily Times

A couple travelling in a convoy got caught in a ''chain reaction'' crash in Dunedin yesterday.

University of Otago law and music student Latafale Auva'a, of South Auckland, was driving a Hyundai Sonata, which was hit from behind and shunted into her boyfriend Callum Lynch-Hine's Honda CRV.

''My car went under him,'' Auva'a said.

Lynch-Hines, of the North Shore, said he had asked Auva'a to follow him to the mechanic yesterday so she could then drop him at Leith Valley Presbyterian Church where he worked.

He bought the Honda last week.

Auva'a has third-party insurance on her late-model Hyundai, which she expected would be written off.

''At least it went out in a blaze of glory.''

University of Otago student Tahlia Moir, of Roxburgh, said she was travelling south on State Highway 1 in Cumberland St and had stopped her Nissan Pulsar at the traffic lights at Museum Reserve.

She was waiting for the lights to change when Lynch-Hines' Honda CRV crashed into the back of her car about 9am.

Moir's car was the final to be hit in the ''chain reaction'' crash on the one-way stretch between Union Pl and Albany St.

It looked like a black Subaru Legacy hit the back of a red Hyundai Sonata, which hit the back of a blue Honda CRV, which hit Moir's Nissan.

The four-car pile-up blocked the left lane of the road, forcing traffic to converge into the right lane.

Auva'a said about 10 minutes after the crash, a car and a Kenworth logging truck collided at the next set of traffic lights further north on the same stretch of road.

A St John spokeswoman said no one was injured in the crashes.