An elderly driver crashed into her friend after getting her brake and accelerator mixed up in the Dunedin suburb of Caversham.
It was the second crash in the suburb on Monday afternoon caused by drivers confusing the brake and accelerator.
In the second crash, a 60-year-old woman was taken to hospital in a serious condition when a car hit her at the intersection of Murrayfield and Burns Sts about 4.20pm.
Senior Sergeant Anthony Bond said the injured woman had just farewelled her friend — an 87-year-old woman — who had been at her house for a visit.
As the older woman was reversing out of a carpark outside her friend’s house, she pressed the accelerator rather than the brake. The car accelerated backwards and hit her friend, Snr Sgt Bond said.
The car spun out, crashed through a fence and into the front yard of a neighbouring property.
Earlier at 1.40pm, another car went through a fence after the driver also hit the accelerator rather than the brake.
The 23-year-old woman driving a red Mazda Demio pressed the accelerator instead of the brake when turning left at the intersection of Thorn and David Sts, Snr Sgt Bond said.
She lost control of the car, which hit the side of an Armourguard vehicle and accelerated through a fence into a garden.
