Police have released the name of a teenager killed when his van crashed in Heriot, west Otago, just before midnight on Saturday.
He was Troy McFarlane Adamson, 17, of Heriot.
He was one of five people killed on New Zealand roads at the weekend.
Sergeant Ross MacRae, of Gore, said Mr Adamson, who had lived for a while in Dunedin, was the sole occupant of a Toyota Hiace van, being driven north on Roxburgh St, Heriot, north of Tapanui, on Saturday night.
The van had left the road, slid along a bank and come to rest with the front of the vehicle submerged in a stream.
Mr Adamson died at the scene.
Speed and alcohol were contributing factors in the crash.
‘‘This is a tragic example of what happens when an inexperienced driver drinks and gets behind the wheel," Sgt MacRae said.
Meanwhile, police are investigating reports that a car which crashed killing two passengers near Levin yesterday was racing before the crash.
Louise Reichenbach, aged 20, of Foxton Beach, and Bailey Hohepa Kinita, aged 14, from Shannon, 33km southwest of Palmerston North, were killed when an overloaded Ford Telstar they were passengers in rolled on Foxton Beach Rd, about 20km north of Levin, shortly before 5am yesterday.
Bailey Kinita was believed to be sitting in the backseat when he was thrown from the vehicle, while Ms Reichenbach was believed to be sitting in the front of the car.
Detective Sergeant Sarn Paroli said police were investigating unconfirmed reports that the car was racing before the crash.
"There is some unconfirmed information circulating that the car had been racing with a second vehicle before the crash but at this stage that is speculation," Mr Paroli said.
"What witnesses have told us is that the car had been seen with another white vehicle earlier in the morning; in what context it is unclear," he said.
"We understand there were two men in that white vehicle and we are keen to speak to them."
Police would also be speaking to two passengers who sustained only minor injuries and a large number of other witnesses.
Three men - the 19-year-old driver, a 23-year-old from Foxton and a 19-year-old from Shannon - were seriously injured and flown to Wellington Hospital's intensive care unit. They remained in a serious condition today.
A 16-year-old Shannon male and 20-year-old Foxton woman were taken to Palmerston North Hospital with minor injuries.
Police are urging people not to interfere with road accident scenes after a passerby used a tractor to clear debris following a crash which killed two people after in the Waikato yesterday.
Police today named the victims of the two-car collision as Rose-Ana Leigh Mitchell-Kingi, 21, and Eruera Eriata Munro, 22, both from Tauranga. The pair were passengers in a Volkswagen hatchback and were returning home from an indoor netball game in Hamilton.
Four people injured in the crash were taken to Waikato Hospital by helicopter, with the front seat passenger in the other car suffering critical chest and abdomen injuries. The three others, including both drivers, suffered moderate injures.
The crash, between an eastbound Honda Accord and the westbound hatchback, happened about 4pm on State Highway 29 at Piarere, 17km southwest of Matamata.
"Initial indications on the cause are that the Honda was on the wrong side of the road as the vehicles approached a corner," acting Waikato road policing manager Senior Sergeant Jeff Penno said.
He praised the efforts of those first at the scene who did their best to stabilise the injured, but said a bystander's decision to clear debris from the road with a "bucket equipped tractor" made it harder for emergency services first on the scene and could hamper a police investigation.
"In the case of serious injury or fatal crashes they need to be investigated and you really don't want traffic driving through the scene as it puts first responders at risk," Mr Penno said.
"In addition to that clearing debris from the road removes items from where they fell making it harder from an investigator's perspective," he said.
Police needed to "honour the dead" by carrying out the most accurate investigation they could and "to do this we need crash scenes to be left as near to how they looked at the time of the crash as possible", Mr Penno said.
