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LATEST:
One person has died and another is critically injured following an accident near Waihi as thousands of holidaymakers make the great homeward trek this evening.
Police are also reporting heavy traffic north of Wellington following an accident which has blocked the north bound lane on State Highway 1 near Waikanae.
The Labour Weekend road toll stood at six this evening – two more than for the whole the holiday last year.
The road toll rose to six late this afternoon after a vehicle rolled on State Highway 2 near Woodlands Road in Waihi.
Many of the country’s main highways are busy with returning Labour Weekend holiday traffic, police say.
SH2 is blocked with traffic being diverted southbound onto Woodland Road and northbound onto Old Tauranga Road.
Two of the eight occupants in the vehicle were airlifted to hospital – one has since died and the other is in a critical condition.
Meanwhile the woman who died after she was struck by a bus north of Wellington this morning had missed the bus and was trying to catch up with it, police say.
Porirua police Sergeant Ron Walker said the woman died at the scene after she was hit by the bus full of passengers on Lyttleton Ave in Porirua at about 8.
The death brought the holiday weekend road toll to five so far – at least one greater than Labour Day weekend last year, when four people were killed.
“It appears this woman missed the bus and had run alongside it and tripped and fell,” he said.25am.
A motorcyclist died near Greymouth yesterday after crashing into a bridg e on State Highway 6 at Coal Creek.
Emergency services were at the scene and the road between Walton Leigh Ave and Parumoana St was cordoned off while police investigated. .
The rider was travelling with a group of friends and speed may have been a contributing factor, police said.
A car crossed the centre line on State Highway 1 at Five Mile Bay and collided with a four-wheel-drive vehicle shortly before 3pm.
Two women were killed in a head-on crash near Taupo on Saturday.
The driver escaped with only minor injuries.
The car’s 79-year-old driver died at the scene while the 53-year-old passenger of the four-wheel-drive died shortly after she was taken to Taupo Hospital.
He was 16-year-old Tod Woodman of Richmond.
Meanwhile, police have named the man who was killed when a four-wheel-drive rolled into a river off the Maungatapu Track in Nelson’s Maitai Valley yesterday, injuring two others.40pm by one of the vehicle’s occupants, who ran from the scene to get help.
Emergency services were alerted to the crash at 5.
