Emergency services at the scene of collision between tourists’ car and logging truck

Emergency services are currently at the scene of a serious vehicle crash between a rental car and a logging truck on a busy rural Waikato highway.

District Road Policing Manager, Inspector Jeff Penno, said first responders were called to the collision on SH27 at Kaihere shortly before 1pm.

“The crash scene is currently being assessed and the Serious Crash Unit have just arrived.

“Initial indications are the incident involved a northbound car losing control on a down hill bend that has collided with a southbound logging truck. The male driver of the car has suffered critical injuries in the crash and a female passenger in the car also suffered life threatening injuries.”

Mr Penno said fire fighters cut out one of the injured parties from the car and the couple are being airlifted to Waikato Hospital.

“At this stage it appears that while the occupants of the car are very seriously injured their situation could have been worse had the logging truck not been going slow up the hill and the driver not quickly reacted to what he saw unfolding.

“The investigation is in its early stages at this point but we can confirm it appears the occupants of the car were visitors from overseas but we need to confirm this with consular officials before we can comment on nationalities.”

Mr Penno said New Zealand road policing staff are striving to implement the safe system approach to road safety.

“We accept that we are all human and that mistakes on our roads will be made but the other parts of the system need to compensate for this, in short, a mistake on our roads should not seriously injure or kill you.

“This is the vision and we are continually working as collaborative partners across the roading sector to achieve this. It has been a bad week on our roads, and Police feel this more than anyone”.

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