By rnz.co.nz and is republished with permission
A person has died after being critically injured in a crash, bringing the deaths on the road over the Christmas-New Year period to 12.
Police said the person died in hospital overnight – the second fatality from the crash which happened on State Highway 29, Kaimai on Thursday.
Police are investigating the crash.
The official 2023 Christmas New Year holiday period began at 4pm on 22 December and ends at 6am on 3 January 2024.
Last year, 21 people died on the roads over the Christmas-New Year holiday period.
Meanwhile, a search is ongoing for two people who went missing after a quad bike rolled into a swimming hole on the swollen Waikainga Stream in the Far North on Saturday evening.
Previous deaths
- A person died after a vehicle fled from a police checkpoint on Beach Road, in WhangÄrei on 22 December.
- A person died after a single-vehicle crash on Te Ahu Ahu Road, Waimate North, on 23 December.
- A person died in a crash on State Highway 32, on Whakamaru Road in the Bay of Plenty on 23 December.
- A person died after a crash between a car and motorbike on State Highway 25 at the 25A turnoff on the Coromandel Peninsula between Hikuai and WhangamatÄ on 23 December.
- A driver died in a single-vehicle crash on the Methven Highway in Ashburton on Christmas Day.
- A person died after a crash on Birchs Road in Prebbleton, Canterbury, on Boxing Day.
- A woman died after a quad bike accident in Marokopa at Rauparaha Street. Witnesses reported seeing a person come off a quad bike on 27 December.
- Brayden Tawa, 27, from Papamoa, died after a crash at the intersection of Aerodrome Road and Hewletts Road, Mount Maunganui, on 27 December.
- One person died after a single-vehicle crash on State Highway 69 at Inangahua, in the Buller District on 28 December.
- A person died after a crash on State Highway 29 in Lower Kamai between a truck and car on 28 December.
- A person died in a single-vehicle crash about 10km east of Russell on 29 December.
