Four die on roads on weekend

Police have named the girl who was killed after the car she was a passenger in hit a tree in Papakura on Saturday afternoon.

She was 14-year-old Mary-Anne Vataua of Papakura.

Auckland police spokeswoman Angeline Barlow said the car lost control and smashed into a tree at 4.45pm on Saturday.

Two others in the car were taken to Auckland Hospital with injuries.

Miss Vataua was the fourth person to die on the country's roads over the Waitangi weekend.

Gregory Paul Reeve, 42, of Hawera, died after his motorbike hit a truck near Hawera on Friday night.

A Hawera police spokesman said today the incident happened on State Highway 45 at Tongahoe Hill Bridge, at about 6.45pm on Friday night.

The truck driver escaped injury, he said.

Also on Friday a 60-year-old Bluff woman died after her car collided with another vehicle on the corner of the Bluff Highway and Moturimu Rd around 4.50pm.

Annette Elizabeth Attfield was taken to Southland Hospital but died of her injuries around 3am on Saturday morning.

Acting Senior Sergeant Mark Lucas of Invercargill police said the people in the other car escaped with minor injuries.

The cause of the crash was still under investigation, he said.

Shortly after that incident, an American tourist was killed and two others critically injured in a head-on crash in Northland around 5.35pm the same day.

The dead woman was Rita Zaross, 62, of New York.

Police said Mrs Zaross' husband, 66-year-old Irving Zaross, apparently overtook another car in a no-passing zone on State Highway 1 near Taipa, northeast of Kaitaia, and collided with a 4WD travelling in the other direction.

Mr Zaross and a 51-year-old Kaitaia man from the 4WD were flown to hospital and were in a critical condition.

- NZPA