hit by a car in a rural Canterbury town<\/a> has been identified as a 10-year-old boy from Springston.<\/p>\nPolice said Alexander Bennett was walking on Leeston Road near Springston when he was hit about 3.30pm on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
He died at the scene.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4JTOLGE_Springston_School_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nSpringston School said staff and students were being supported after Alexander’s death.
\nPhoto: Anna Sargent\n<\/p>\n
Bennett was a pupil at Springston School.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Springston School Te Kura o Makonui board said its thoughts were with the child’s family, and staff and students were being supported.<\/p>\n
“We have had a tragic passing of a student of our school. We are unable to provide any further details at this point as the police investigation is continuing,” they said.<\/p>\n
A local parent, Mark Amer, posted on a community page that he was concerned about drivers speeding on Leeston Road, where school children got on and off school buses.<\/p>\n
“Most days I drop my daughter off at Springston School and most days I see the same things, people speeding through the 30kph signs near school, people not doing 20kph past a stopped school bus,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This morning I stood and watched for a few minutes and couldn’t believe it, it was no bloody different, I couldn’t believe after what’s happened yesterday people are still doing stupid and dangerous things around our kids.”<\/p>\n
Police said enquires into the circumstances of the crash were ongoing.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leeston Road, Canterbury. Photo: Nathan McKinnon \/ RNZ A child who died after being hit by a car…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-269111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Leeston](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4JTOS0Q_Media_1_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n