The critically injured 26-year-old managed to get out of his car but he collapsed and died of his injuries not long after.
Yesterday dozens of his friends and family gathered for his funeral at the Horsham Downs Community Hall.
His best mate and one of his pallbearers, Michael Jenkins, said his friend was a highly likeable and "real cheeky sort of a guy".
"He loved being around people and socialising and things like that - he was always up for something," he said.
Mr Jenkins said the death had come as a cruel blow for Mr Stantiall's partner, Ms Barr, his parents, Rob and Jenny, and his older siblings Jeremy and Carley, who were struggling.
He said Ms Barr was ecstatic at their son's birth but was now left to raise young Zeb on her own without Mr Stantiall as his father.
"I don't think she's coping too well at all - you wouldn't, would you ?"
"After having a high like that happen and then this ... it's not too good," said Mr Jenkins.
Mr Stantiall grew up in Orini, about 20km east of Taupiri, before his father's work as a farmer saw the family leave for Tasmania in the mid-1990s when he was about 10 years old.
He attended high school in Tasmania before returning to New Zealand about 10 years ago and to follow in his father's farming footsteps.
Mr Stantiall had been managing a dairy farm near Waharoa for about six months before the accident.
He was a keen motocross rider and pig hunter.
Another of Mr Stantiall's friends, who asked not to be named, said he was extremely proud when his son was born.
"He let us know about it all right, you should have seen the smile on his face when Zeb was born, he was grinning from ear to ear."
"He was taken far too young, 26 is way too young for anyone to go. He was a bloody good bugger, he had no enemies because everyone liked him," she said.
Mr Stantiall was buried at Orini cemetery, about a kilometre from the house he grew up in.
His death takes the number of deaths on Waikato roads this year to 50.
