An 18-year-old was killed when a car ran over him as he lay in the middle of the road after falling off a small motorcycle in Dargaville.
Friends who witnessed the accident tried to warn the car driver about the injured but conscious victim lying in the road on Fridaynight.
But the car driver thought they were abusing him and did not stop, police said today.
Sergeant Andrew Abraham said it was not known if the victim and the 27-year-old driver, from Dargaville, knew each other but it was likely they did. "It's a small town," he said.
The Wellington university student, who had returned home for the term break, was taken to Dargaville Hospital where he died shortly afterwards.
The police serious crash unit was investigating the crash and no decision had been made whether charges would be pressed against the driver of the car, Mr Abraham said.
Whangarei police Sergeant Graham Povey said yesterday the car involved left the scene and was located at the Brethren Church in Dargaville about 10.20pm. The driver had called police and said he had left the scene because he had feared for his safety.
The dead man was Tim Joe Honore, 18, a first-year Massey University design school student, who had had mounted a motorcycle, described by police as a "miniature chopper", when a group of friends left a party.
He had driven slowly west along Parore St, wobbled and fallen off at the Tirarau St intersection.
A 16-year-old witness said: "He was lying there on his back but we didn't think he was hurt.
"We saw a car coming and another guy and I ran out into the middle of the road and tried to wave it down, but it didn't stop and ran over Tim.
"I ran after the car, yelling for the driver to stop. As he was turning into Ranfurly St, he called out to tell me, 'I don't want to talk to you', and drove away."
The death was the only reported fatality on the nation's roads over the weekend.
