American family in fatal crash at Hobbiton turnoff
Tuesday, 19 April 2016
An American couple are gravely ill and their daughter is dead after a collision with a logging truck at the Hobbiton turnoff.
The 22-year-old woman died in the car and her parents were trapped after their car turned into the path of a fully laden logging truck about 9.30 on Monday morning.
Her father was at the wheel.
Both parents, in their 50s, remain in a critical condition at Waikato Hospital.
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Police were still trying to contact next of kin through the US Embassy.
The collision on the Waikato highway bears striking similarities to the triple fatal crash that killed a group of US tourists at a Tuhikaramea Road intersection near Hamilton in 2015, Waikato Police Senior Sergeant Gill Meadows said.
'It was freakishly similar … We can't yet explain why they didn't see the logging truck.
'The trio were heading from Tauranga towards Hamilton when they turned right into the path of the oncoming truck at the intersection of Hopkins Road.
'I don't know if we can actually signpost it any clearer.'
Staffers from Chookys Auto, on the corner where the accident happened, were first on the scene, running over with a fire extinguisher.
'We heard the bang and looked up and saw a big cloud … from the impact and the air bags,' Laurence Dalziel said.
Police said the passenger side took the full force of the impact.
On the way back to Hamilton from the crash site, Meadows came across another car stopped in the right-hand, northbound lane of the Waikato Expressway.
They too were a family of US tourists.
'We keep pushing the message but it doesn't seem to be getting through. Tourists need to be aware of their surroundings, know where they are going, if you are unsure of your destination or have missed the turnoff pull to the side of the road.'
In March 2015, three tourists from the US died at the Tuhikaramea Road intersection with SH30 just south of Hamilton.
Their car pulled into the path of an oncoming truck and trailer unit.
The two couples had arrived in New Zealand days before the accident, which happened when they were on their way back from the Waitomo Caves.
They turned right onto Tuhikaramea Road, on the way to the temple at the Church of Latter-day Saints at Temple View, just before the impact, police said.
The car's driver was the only one in the vehicle to survive - his wife and another couple died at the scene.
The truck driver was uninjured but shaken.
Speaking soon after the accident, Acting Waikato District Road Policing Manager Jeff Penno said police were 'absolutely gutted'.
'Those people were tourists to our country and we live in the most beautiful country in the world, so it's only natural people want to travel here, but that brings a whole pile of challenges with it.'
'We accept people make mistakes, we accept we are human. But at the same time the roading system should be designed … to compensate for those mistakes.'