KEY POINTS:
Police have named a motorcyclist killed in a head-on crash in the Waikato on Sunday.
He was 47-year-old Barry Adams, of Te Aroha, who was killed when a northbound motorcycle appeared to cross the centreline into the path of his southbound bike near Mangakino, 34km southwest of Tokoroa, said Constable Glen Taylor of Tokoroa police.
Mr Adams' 48-year-old female passenger was injured in the crash and was still in intensive care in Waikato Hospital this afternoon.
Two others were also injured in the crash.
Mr Adams was one of three people killed on the country's roads at the weekend.
Sixteen-month-old Jackson Paul Gwerder was killed when he was run over by his mother on an Eltham, Taranaki, farm driveway yesterday.
The boy's mother was heading down the driveway when another vehicle entered the property and she stopped alongside it to speak to the driver.
"While they were talking, the little boy walked in front of his mother's four-wheel-drive vehicle," Stratford Senior Sergeant Shaun Keenan told the Taranaki Daily News "When she moved off again, the tragedy occurred. It's a terrible situation."
Mr Keenan said the driveway was quite elevated, and the mother was driving a large four-wheel-drive vehicle.
The police serious crash unit yesterday used a road cone to simulate the accident.
"The road cone the crash unit used was about the same height as the little boy, and it had to be moved 3m forward of the vehicle before it could be seen from the driver's seat," he said.
"That's how easy it is for tragedies such as this to happen. All we can say is that motorists should always take extreme care when there are children around."
Police have also named a woman who died after being hit by a bus in Auckland on Friday night.
Leonida Gashi, 18, was dragged nearly 400m after she tripped in front of the Metrolink bus at the intersection of Mayoral Drive and Wellesley Street about 10.20pm.
She died in Auckland Hospital about 5am Saturday and family members were considering taking her body back to Kosovo.
Ms Gashi moved to New Zealand from Albania with her parents and two elder brothers as refugees in 2000.
- NZPA
