A teenager has died after being hit by a car in Omaha in the early hours of New Year's Day, police said in a statement.
The driver of the car, who is assisting police, was known to the deceased person.
Emergency services were called to Omaha Drive at around 4am on Saturday morning.
The Serious Crash Unit is investigating to establish the circumstances of how this tragedy has occurred.
Police said a second person has died following a crash in New Plymouth early this morning.
The crash on St Aubyn Street at the intersection with Calvert Road happened just before 5am.
The fatalities are the first on New Zealand's roads in 2022 and follows a total of 319 road deaths on 2021.
"In the last 60 years there has only been three when New Zealand has had less than 300 annual road deaths, which were all early last decade," says AA Policy and Research Manager Simon Douglas.
"Even with the pandemic and lockdowns of the last two years we have sadly and disappointingly not been able to get back below that mark of 300 annual road deaths.”
"Some people would point out that the population and amount of vehicles on the roads have grown in the last decade which will have an impact on crash numbers and that’s true," says Simon.
"But if we look across to Australia they were on track to have about 4.4 road deaths per 100,000 people this year while New Zealand had 6.3.
"There is no reason why our roads shouldn’t be as safe as Australia’s and if they were we would have had nearly 100 less deaths this year."
The official Christmas holiday road toll, which started at 4pm on December 24 and runs until 6am on January 5, currently stands at seven according to Ministry of Transport data.
