The vehicles hit each other near the intersection of State Highway 36 and Leonard Rd near Ngongotah\u0101, 10km north of Rotorua, about 5.30am, Inspector Logan Marsh said. <\/p>\n
\u201cInitial inquiries show that one of the vehicles involved has crossed the centre line just prior to the crash and we\u2019re working to understand why that has occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marsh thanked those who rushed to help. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese incidents are always confronting, and we want to acknowledge the members of the public who did what they could to help while emergency services responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrashes like this are devastating for the families involved and the community, and police will continue to support those affected by the tragic incident.\u201d <\/p>\n
Roads are expected to be busy around the country today as holidaymakers head home after the Anzac long weekend.<\/p>\n
Police would not hesitate to take enforcement action to stop dangerous driving behaviour, McKennie said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be focusing on targeting the behaviours that we know contribute to serious injury or death on our roads.\u201d<\/p>\n
McKennie said that included enforcing seatbelt and child restraint use, while making sure people were not driving when influenced by alcohol, drugs or fatigue; sticking to a safe speed within the limit for the weather and conditions, and ensuring people put their phones and other distractions away.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds so simple, and it should be \u2013 and yet we\u2019re still finding people who aren\u2019t managing these basics for a safe journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyone travelling during the long weekend\u202fshould\u202fcheck the\u202fNZTA\u202fJourney Planner for\u202fup-to-date\u202finformation\u202fon travel times, roadworks,\u202fclosures\u202fand\u202fdelays, McKennie said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The vehicles hit each other near the intersection of State Highway 36 and Leonard Rd near Ngongotah\u0101, 10km…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,78459,3549,6179,4480,4189,42,2072,1345,3375,2190,3180,43,384,675,1314,20383,1327,19098,2069,1961,61,1865,42032,40,38,41,39,1237,25396,3055,4767],"class_list":["post-399117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-anzac","tag-crash","tag-died","tag-drive","tag-driving","tag-headlines","tag-holidaymakers","tag-home","tag-killed","tag-long","tag-near","tag-news","tag-people","tag-police","tag-road","tag-roads","tag-rotorua","tag-safe","tag-stay","tag-this","tag-to","tag-today","tag-toll","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-two","tag-urge","tag-urging","tag-weekend"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399117","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=399117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}