Three die in fiery Taranaki smash

Three people in their 20s were killed in a fiery crash in Taranaki yesterday when a car and the van in which they were travelling collided head-on.

The three were among five confirmed road fatalities at the weekend.

National Radio reported that a middle-aged driver was facing charges in relation to the Taranaki crash, which happened at 1.37am at Normanby, about 70km southeast of New Plymouth.

Police said a vehicle failed to negotiate a sweeping left-hand bend, colliding head-on with a second vehicle, which caught fire. The three people who died were all in the second vehicle.

State Highway 3 at Manutahi, 15km southeast of Hawera, was closed for several hours.

A driver who was killed when his car failed to negotiate a bend in a rural area of the Bay of Plenty early on Saturday was Jason John Te Whetu, 20, of Tauranga.
Mr Te Whetu's car left State Highway 35 at Tirohanga, 11km east of Opotiki, crashed through fences and into a paddock.

A motorcyclist was killed yesterday in a collision with a car at an intersection on State Highway 26, 5km north of Matarangi, on the Coromandel peninsula.

- NZPA