Holiday road toll: Toll rises to nine with death after Christchurch crash
Thursday, 31 December 2020
A death after a crash in Christchurch overnight has taken the road toll for the Christmas-New Year period to nine.
Police confirmed one person died in the single-car crash on Russley Rd about 10.45pm Wednesday. Two other people in the car were injured and taken to Christchurch Hospital.
The official holiday period began at 4pm on Christmas Eve and runs until 6am on January 5.
The number of deaths so far this holiday period is now more than twice the four who died last Christmas and equal to the number who died during the whole period in the 2018/19 Christmas-New Year holiday period.
Data from the Ministry of Transport shows the four deaths in 2019/20 were the lowest during the holiday period since at least 1980. The worst in that time was 1981/82, when 35 people died.
Two people died as a result of crashes on Tuesday morning. The first was a two-car collision on Nikau Rd near Pahīatua , north of Masterton, before 5am. The second was later in the morning on Kahikatea Flat Rd in Dairy Flat, north of Auckland.
On Monday, a man and a woman died after a milk tanker and a motorbike collided on the Riverton-Wallacetown highway at the Oreti River Bridge, in Southland. They were Kareen Marie Malcolm and James Lennon Malcolm, both 61, of Invercargill.
Early Boxing Day, two people died when their car hit a bridge on Triangle Rd, Henderson in west Auckland. One has been named as 20-year-old Viliami Muru-Teutau.
On Christmas Day, two people were killed on Clevedon-Kawakawa Road, in rural south Auckland, when the car they were in crashed into a power pole. Police named the pair as locals Rebecca McAlees, 24, and Terry Charleston, 34.