The holiday road toll stood at one last night with the death of 31-year-old man in Waikato early yesterday.
The man, from Ngaruawahia, was thrown from his car after it clipped a guardrail, crossed the centreline and crashed 8m down a steep bank on State Highway 1, at Hopuhopu, 3km southwest of Taupiri, about 1.20am.
He was taken to Waikato Hospital, but died, police said.
No other vehicles were involved in the crash and the man was the only person in the car.
The official holiday road toll period began at 4pm on Thursday and runs until 6am on January 5.
Four people died in crashes on Thursday before the official road toll period began.
A man in his 50s was killed in a crash near Huntly in the afternoon about the same time as two people were killed when a 4WD vehicle crashed into a power pole on the remote East Cape.
One person died earlier in a crash near Napier on the expressway to Hastings.
• The Otago Regional Rescue Helicopter was called to ferry a man with a broken leg to Dunedin Hospital following a motorbike crash near Otematata last night.
The man broke his femur in the crash, which occurred on Loch Laird Rd, near Otematata, about 8.20pm, a St John spokeswoman said.
No other details were available last night.
• The driver of a vehicle that crashed on Ngapara Georgetown Rd, inland from Oamaru, was taken to Oamaru Hospital with moderate injuries yesterday.
Emergency services were called to the scene of the accident, near the intersection with Glen Settlement Rd, shortly before 7pm.
The vehicle left the road and rolled before coming to rest in a farmer's paddock, a spokesman for the police communications centre in Christchurch said.
The driver was understood to be the sole occupant of the vehicle.
• Two occupants of a car which rolled on Taieri Mouth Rd, about 2km from Taieri Bridge on Thursday, were lucky to escape without injury.
The accident happened near Henley about 9am.
