High road toll puzzles M.O.T.

Press, 30 April 1984, Page 1

High road toll puzzles M.O.T.

PA Wellington Ten persons died on the roads at the week-end, making it the worst non-holiday week-end since September. The worst accident was

at Te Iringa, near Kaikohe, in which two men died and eight were injured. The dead men were

Tuaka Mau, aged 26; and Jimmy Stevens, aged 34, both of Te Iringa. Four of those injured were with them in one car when it was in collision with another vehicle about 7.30 p.m. on Saturday. Another double fatality occurred about Bkm north of Te Awamutu about 7 p.m. on Saturday on State highway 3, when a car driven by a retired farmer was in collision with another vehicle. Those killed were Francis Richard Weal, aged 66; and his wife Marie Therese Weal, aged 57, of Te Awamutu. A young man was killed when run over while asleep on the southern motorway at Drury, south of Auckland, at 3.15 a.m. on Saturday. He was Wayne Miller, aged 19. His car earlier spun off the road into a ditch, and the police believe he went to sleep on the motorway. In Wellington, a Johnsonville man died when an oncoming car skidded and collided with his vehicle near The Terrace tunnel in the city. He was Peter Alfred William Southee, aged 47. The

accident occurred about 4.30 p.m. on Saturday. Two women pedestrians were killed in separate road accidents in Christchurch on Saturday evening. A woman, aged 80, died when she was struck by a car at the junction of Papanui Road and Blighs Road at 6.30 p.m. on Saturday. The Christchurch police said that they would not release her name at the request of her relatives. A second woman died in the intensive-care unit of Christchurch Hospital last evening after she was struck by two cars at 6.15 p.m. on Saturday. The accident occurred on Riccarton Road, not far from Mona Vale Avenue. She was Elaine Elizabeth Greenslade, aged 42, of Matai Street, Riccarton. On Friday, a boy was killed when crossing in front of a car on State highway 6 in Marlborough about 4 p.m. He was Billie Jim Walker, aged six of Okaramio. The same evening, a Westport man was killed when his car failed to take a bend and hit a bank about 4km north of Waikari, North Canterbury, on State highway 7. He was lan Patrice Lowry, aged 26. Brian Frank Trevor, aged

29, of Akaroa, was still seriously ill in the intensivecare unit at Christchurch Hospital yesterday after the car he was driving hit a tree and a whale pot memorial in Akaroa on Friday morning. Ministry of Transport officials said yesterday that detailed examinations would be made to find out why the accidents occurred. It was the worst non-holiday weekend on the roads since September, when 13, including six teenagers, died. In August there were 15 deaths in the first week-end of the month, and in 1982 there were four non-holiday week-ends in which the toll was 12 or more. Chief Traffic Superintendent Henry Gore said the week-end’s accidents could be part of the Easter aftermath, “but we were expecting the longer holiday to have staggered traffic home, which would have made it easier. “Obviously it hasn’t.”