Soufiane Sadek's last online post, before he and Hugo Defacques died in the crash, was a selfie taken at Piha.
Soufiane Sadek's last online post, before he and Hugo Defacques died in the crash, was a selfie taken at Piha.
The families of the three French engineering students who died in a fiery crash that claimed four lives last weekend have arrived in New Zealand.
The three dead students, from the Center for Industrial Studies (CESI) in Saint Nazaire, have been named by French media as Soufiane Sadek, 25, and Hugo Defacques, 23, from the city of Amiens, north of Paris, and Islem Boudia Merad, 20, of Orvault near Nantes.
The students were carrying out postgraduate study in Auckland.
Sadek's Facebook page has been turned into a memorial and shows his last post, a selfie taken at Piha Beach on June 3, as the cover photo.
The three students were travelling with two other French CESI students in a rented Toyota Corolla, which collided with a black BMW on State Highway 2 near Netherton, west of Paeroa, at 7.40pm last Saturday.
According to French media reports, the five students were weeks into a three-month internship to validate their second year of study and were part of a wider group of 10 CESI students studying at AUT in Auckland.
The Courrier Picard newspaper in France reported that Sadek and Defacques had been best friends since childhood and played in the same basketball team together.
Former coach Patrice Grimonprez told the newspaper the young men were similar in character - calm and gentle.
"The club plans to pay tribute to them in the weeks and months to come."
French media have named Hugo Defacques, left, as one of three dead French engineering students following a head-on crash in thick fog near Netherton last weekend. Photo / Facebook
The paper reported Defacques' older sister as saying her brother was a "beautiful person".
Ouest-France, a French daily newspaper, named Merad as the third student who died and reported CESI's regional director Stephane Degres as saying the accident was unfortunate.
"Everyone is very shocked by the news. We are thinking of the families."
CESI students in France were being supported by counsellors and a crisis staff team had been activated in New Zealand, the newspaper said.
Degres said up to 70 CESI students were currently studying abroad and it would be up to them if they wanted to continue their internships.
CESI's director of studies and the director of international relations travelled to New Zealand earlier this week along with family members of the dead students.
One of the survivors was now stable, and the other remained in intensive care, a Waikato District Health Board spokeswoman said.
Waikato District road policing manager Inspector Marcus Lynam said it was too early to determine what caused the crash but police had interviewed the driver and were waiting to speak to the other patient, and some witnesses.
Lynam said charges were possible but police wouldn't know that until after the cause was established.
Lynam understood several members of the French families had arrived in New Zealand to take their loved ones home.
An AUT spokeswoman said staff and students were "extremely sad about the tragic accident at the weekend and our thoughts are with the families, friends and colleagues of all involved".
She said the five students were undertaking postgraduate activity with AUT's School of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences.
"We have worked with the French Embassy, staff from the French CESI engineering school and police to provide support to the families of the students."
Concern at rise of crash carnage on Kiwi roads
By Lee Umbers
Worrying new crash statistics have emerged after a horror 24 hours on our roads last weekend, in which eight people died.
NZ Transport Agency figures show the number of fatal road crashes from January 1 this year to June 22 rose to 159 from 142 in the same period last year.
Those numbers are included in a total road toll of 344 up from 329 this time last year - including the doubling from 15 to 30 of those in the 20-24 years category.
The cost of treating those injured in road incidents has also soared. ACC has revealed it paid $435,802,640 last year for motor vehicle injury claims. That is up from $399,089,156 in 2015, and $341,865,331 in 2012.
There were 37,472 new and accepted claims in 2016, up from 33,896 the previous year and from 31,703 in 2012.
Associate Transport Minister Tim Macindoe said year-to-year road toll changes were complex, with many possible causes.
But he said: "I am deeply concerned by the recent increase in deaths on our roads.
"[That] reinforces that we need to continue our focus on improving the safety of our roads, and educating road users about the need to stick to the laws that are in place for their safety. Road safety is everyone's responsibility."
The Government spent billions of dollars a year on physical infrastructure improvements such as median barriers, rumble strips and wide shoulders, as well as on road safety enforcement, advertising, and education campaigns, Macindoe said.
The "Safer Roads and Roadsides" programme announced last year allocates $600 million for safety improvements. More than 90 high-risk sites on rural state highways across 14 regions will undergo safety improvements.
"I can't be in every car ensuring people wear their seatbelts, drive at the right speed, and don't get behind the wheel when they've been drinking - which makes it difficult for me to give any assurance that the road toll will decrease," Macindoe said.
"I can however give an assurance that the Government is continually working on making our roads safer, on ensuring the vehicles entering New Zealand have appropriate safety measures like airbags and electronic stability control, and on funding education and advertising campaigns prompting safe driving behaviour from all New Zealanders."
AA general manager motoring affairs Mike Noon said: "The AA is really concerned because this is the fourth year we are seeing a rise in the road toll... because there is so much work being done on so many levels to try and make the road toll a lesser thing."
The AA was working with its research foundation and transport agencies to understand why some people were still not wearing seatbelts.
Some 100 people killed on the road last year were not wearing restraints.
"It just seems such a simple thing to make it click and save a life," Noon said.
"The equipment's in every car and it's not being used and people are needlessly dying. It's a tragedy really... for their families and their communities in New Zealand."
The AA would also push for safety ratings to be displayed on cars when they were sold.
If he bought a washing machine, "it tells me how much water that machine is going to use, how much electricity that it is going to use". But if he purchased a car, "it'll tell me how much fuel it uses but not how safe it is".
