Sad start to holiday motoring

The Christmas-New Year holiday road toll reached five yesterday when a motorcyclist died in a collision with a truck at Otira near Arthurs Pass.

And there were fears last night that an Auckland woman who fell out the front passenger door of a car in Mt Albert Rd on Christmas night would not survive.

The 37-year-old, who suffered severe head injuries, was in a critical condition in Auckland Hospital.

Police said that despite heavy traffic yesterday the main roads in the upper North Island had been relatively trouble-free.

There were reports of large queues at the end of the Northern Motorway near Orewa in the morning and a snarl-up near Maramarua after a minor accident on State Highway 2 in the afternoon.

Early yesterday two men were fatally injured when their car left the road on a corner of State Highway 1 south of Paraparaumu, hit a tree and burst into flames about 3.40am.

The crash blocked the northbound lane of the highway, but northbound traffic was diverted to the southbound lane.

The victims had not been named last night.

On Christmas Day, a 44-year-old woman passenger was killed and three other people injured when a vehicle went through a barrier and plunged down a 70m bank near Omaha, 16km northeast of Warkworth, shortly before 5pm.

The dead woman had not been publicly identified last night.

Yesterday's fatal motorcycle accident in Otira also injured the pillion passenger, who was flown to Christchurch Hospital.

Christmas night's accident in Mt Albert Rd was the second serious holiday traffic incident in Auckland.

The night before, a 27-year-old woman pedestrian was killed when a car hit her in Blockhouse Bay.

By the end of Christmas Day last year, five people had died in road accidents.

Over the whole holiday period there were 21 deaths and 72 serious injuries on the roads.

This year's Christmas-New Year holiday period started at 4pm on Tuesday and will end at 6am on January 3.

- STAFF REPORTER, NZPA

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