Road toll up 34 for year

Press, 2 January 1981, Page 1

Road toll up 34 for year

PA

Wellington

The death toll on New Zealand roads in 1980 was 588, 34 more than in 1979. Already three people have died on the roads this year.

Twenty-nine have died in road accidents since 4 p.m. on Christinas Eve, more than double the figure for the whole of the 1979 holiday period. The holiday period officially ends on January 5. Fears that New Year revelry would add a further 10 or 15 deaths to the holiday road toll proved to be wrong yesterday. Emergency services round New Zealand had braced themselves for continued road carnage but the only fatalities yesterday were in Auckland and Taupo and the death of a young man in Alexandra Hospital from injuries suffered on December 27.

In Taupo a man was arrested and will appear at a _ special sitting of the District Court at Taupo today after a hit-and-run incident in which a man died early yesterday. The dead man was

Gregory Peter Turner, aged 21, a toolmaker, of Howick, who died in Rotorua Hospital about seven hours after having been struck by a car on State highway one at Two Mile Bay, just north of Rainbow Point, Taupo, about 2.30 a.m.

The police believe that Mr Turner had left a party and had been walking to his holiday home at the time. The car failed to stop. Another motorist found Mr Turner soon after. The third death was of a youth aged 18 who died in hospital from injuries suffered when he lost control of his motor-cycle on State highway 85 near Alexandra on December 27. He was

William Paul McClenaghan, aged 18, of Invercargill.

On Tue r day a Hastings man died in hospital from injuries suffered in a car accident near Hastings on Saturday. He was

Sonny Victor Charles Hokianga, aged 34, of Te Hau.

Another man in the car died earlier. He was

James Mikaera Te Nahu, aged 26, also of Te Hau.

A Porirua youth died at Mangatuna, near Tolaga Bay, when the car he was driving rolled over, trapping him underneath. He was

Mark Lesley Crawford, aged 18.