Party driver among four dead

Nicolos Agius was taken to hospital but died last night. Photo / Facebook

A driver who travelled 400m on the wrong side of the road before a fatal smash in inner-city Auckland yesterday morning had been partying with friends.

Life support for Nicolos Agius, 28, was switched off last night, about 12 hours after he was taken to Auckland Hospital in a critical condition.

The Toyota station wagon he was driving crossed over to the wrong side of Symonds St before hitting a power pole near the Southern Motorway overbridge about 8.50am.

His mother Judith said her son had been with friends the night before. She believed he had been driving to get food.

She said he stopped breathing in the ambulance. His life support was switched off at 9pm last night.

"I don't know what happened. I just don't know. I think he fell asleep at the wheel. He had accelerated [before crashing]. When they got him to the hospital they x-rayed him and ... it wasn't good."

Nicolos had studied IT at Auckland University and was to turn 29 in a couple of weeks.

Witness Philip Hale said he tried to get Nicolos to pull over when he saw his car cross to the wrong side of the road.

"When you see someone on the wrong side of the road you know something's wrong.

"He carried on then he just veered off the road and 'boof', went straight into the lamp."

Jason Bennett had earlier seen Nicolos waiting to turn right from Mt Eden Rd on to Symonds St.

When the light turned green, he waited for about a minute and did not move until other drivers honked their horns. "He was driving very erratically," Bennett said.

Nicolos had posted on Facebook the day before he was looking forward to a concert that night. He said that he had not been "maggot" - slang for getting out of it - for almost two weeks, so was going to make the most of it.

Police northern communications Inspector Ian Brooker said the man had hit a pole and became trapped inside his car.

Vector staff were called to the scene to repair the damaged power pole and a hazardous materials team from the Fire Service was called to clean up a petrol spill.

One person was killed when two cars collided at the intersection of 15th Ave and Fraser St in Tauranga at 8.20pm.

Acting Inspector Danny Mead of Police Central Communications said one of the cars hit a street sign pole and the 21-year-old driver was killed. His girlfriend and the driver of the other car were taken to Tauranga Hospital with serious injuries.

A man died in an accident in Franklin, 10km west of Pukekohe, about 8.20pm when two cars collided head on the Mauku Railway Overbridge at Union Rd. One of the drivers, a local man in his late 40s, died at the scene.

Two women in the other vehicle were taken to Middlemore Hospital with serious injuries. One was airlifted to the hospital by the Westpac Rescue Helicopter. The police serious Crash Unit are investigating.

An 80-year-old man died in Rotorua Hospital last night from serious chest injuries sustained in a head-on crash at Kuratau near Turangi about 4.20pm yesterday. A 60-year-old woman with back injuries was also taken to hospital.