Four high-school students killed in fatal smash

By LOUISA CLEAVE and STUART DYE

Friends Logan Bennett and Roman Toia should have started their final year of high school yesterday.

Their principal was expecting the 17-year-olds to be senior "role models" at Howick College.

Instead Bill Dimery is preparing a crisis management plan to help students cope with their deaths, and that of fellow student Craig Kinnear, 15.

Logan, Roman, Craig and Edgewater College student Wikcliffe Taufoa, Siu , 15, died when their car slammed into a traffic light pole in Botany Downs, south Auckland, at 12.10am yesterday.

Year 11 students Craig and Wikcliffe were expected back at school today.

Counties Manukau police are seeking witnesses to the accident at the intersection of Te Irirangi Drive and Accent Drive.

Crash investigators say it is one of the most horrific single-car smashes they have seen in the district.

Sergeant Paul Latham, who has been investigating fatal crashes for 26 years, said the Nissan Pulsar four-door hatchback might have been travelling at 140km/h.

He said modern cars were designed to crumple around the occupants and protect them, but at that speed they had almost no chance.

"The vehicle was travelling at a very high speed which is why we have got the disintegration."

Police sent a special team to identify the occupants but it was difficult to tell who was driving.

Blood samples from the quartet are being tested for alcohol and drugs.

Mr Dimery said the dead students were "not the sort of kids you would expect to go hooning around the place".

Logan and Roman were due to return as Year 13 students and were "the sort of kids we look forward to having as role models".

Craig, a year 11 student, had been described by students as a "loveable" young man, Mr Dimery said.

The three friends were "part of a wider and quite tight-knit group of students who were basically all good citizens".

"They weren't outstanding scholars but I guess their claim to fame would be as genuinely good citizens."

Logan and Roman belonged to the school's kapa haka group and played basketball, a sport in which Logan was selected for the Counties Manukau under-18 squad last year.

He had also been training with the Shelton Blazers, a Conference Basketball League second division team made up of older players.

Roman played for the school's first XV and had been supported at games by his mother and sister, said Mr Dimery.

"Roman was always incredibly polite and courteous."

His brother attends Howick College while Logan's brother and sister attend Pakuranga College.

Craig and Roman lived in Dannemora, a suburb between Howick and Whitford. Wikcliffe came from East Tamaki and Logan lived in Pakuranga.

Friends gathered at the crash site yesterday to pay tribute to the teenagers.

Flowers and cards had been placed around the base of the bent traffic pole, with one note saying, "Your smiles will stay in my heart forever".

Howick College pupils said Logan and Roman had been friends for many years and had the "most potential of anyone we knew".

One friend, Jessica, said she had known the pair throughout her college years.

"Logan was going to be a basketball star and Roman would have played top rugby," she said.

They were popular and well-known for always having a smile.

Another friend, who asked not to be named, said there was "no way" either Roman or Logan would have been drinking and driving.

"They just weren't like that," he said.

Edgewater College principal Allan Vester said Wikcliffe's parents visited the school yesterday morning to tell him their son had been killed.

He said staff would meet the family today to discuss how the school might be involved in Wikcliffe's funeral.

Mr Vester said the teenager, known as Cliff, was a keen rugby player and was remembered by staff as always polite.

Students at school yesterday were told of his death and students returning today will be addressed at the morning assembly.

Staff at the BP garage near the crash site said it was not uncommon to see cars racing down the 80km/h-zoned four-lane stretch of Te Irirangi Drive, a popular spot for so-called boy racers.