KEY POINTS:
A heartbroken daughter is demanding action to ensure her teacher mother's death in a rural car crash was not in vain.
Suzanne Kirby's family made the heart-wrenching decision to turn off her life support on Wednesday - a week after she lost control of her car at an
accident blackspot on a remote road in West Auckland.
The accident has raised concerns about the length of time it takes to lower speed limits on country roads caught in growing city limits.
The local council had been battling to have the limit reduced by national road officials - but said it faced a bureaucratic nightmare.
Kirby, the 42-year-old assistant principal of Henderson High, was on her way to work when she lost control of her green Daihatsu Terios on Candia Rd on February 11.
The car rolled on to its roof and was struck by an oncoming vehicle. Kirby's sister, Liz Thompson, said the dead woman was a careful driver who drove the journey twice a day.
"This was her first accident. She had kids, she never took unnecessary risks." Kirby suffered extensive head injuries in the impact. She had surgery to stabilise severe internal bleeding and doctors induced a coma.
"She had a diffused axonal injury which basically means her brain rotated around so much in her skull that it tore the nerves apart," said Thompson. "She didn't wake up when they took her out of the coma." Kirby's family, including daughters Nicola Evans, 20, and Annie Evans, 14, are devastated by her death.
"I'm not angry ... but I will be if nothing is done," said Nicola. "I don't want this wake-up call to go unnoticed. I would hate to think of another family going through what we have in the last week."
Sergeant Stu Kearns said it was unclear what caused the crash. He said the road was slippery because of rain and "flushing" - when bitumen melts through hot, dry weather and rises to the surface layer of stone chips.
Kirby's crash was the third serious incident on that 70km/h stretch of Candia Rd, in the past year.
Waitakere City Council traffic safety spokeswoman Kitch Cuthbert said the road was considered a blackspot. The speed limit used to be 100km/h and while the council had successfully campaigned for it to be lowered, it wanted it reduced further.
She said the process was a bureaucratic nightmare.
"We need to speed it up."
New Zealand Transport Agency spokesman Andrew Knackstedt said all councils could set speed limits for their own roads.
"But they have to provide evidence as to why it should be approved. We will obviously work with the Waitakere City Council to try and find a solution that is appropriate for everyone."
Kirby's family decided to switch off her life support the day after she was brought out of her induced coma. Hospital staff moved her into a private room for her final hours.
"She had booked flights to Sydney to see Madame Butterfly and she had ordered the CD," said Nicola.
"It arrived by courier after her accident so we played it to her so she had a chance to hear it."
Kirby, who was born in Wellington and grew up in Havelock North, was a keen traveller and backpacked her way around Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysian Borneo.
She started her teaching career at Selwyn College and worked at Parnell and Waitakere colleges before taking a year off to complete an economics degree at Auckland University. After deciding business was not for her, she took a job at Henderson High and was appointed assistant principal six months ago.
Her sister said students from Kirby's form class would speak at her funeral on Tuesday. "This is an absolute tragedy," said Thompson.
"Suze was such an amazingly giving and generous person. This is such a waste."
