FED: Easter road toll up to 20

AAP General News (Australia)
04-05-1999
FED: Easter road toll up to 20

SYDNEY, April 5 AAP - Queensland recorded its first Easter fatality today as the nation's
road toll rose by two to 20.

Road deaths this Easter are already five more than for Easter last year.

Queensland's first Easter fatality came early today, when the body of a 31-year-old cyclist
was found by a passing motorist on Goodwood Road, 15 km south of Bundaberg.

Police said he had been struck by a passing vehicle.

In South Australia, a 15-year-old girl was killed when a four-wheel vehicle rolled in the
state's mid-north.

She was among a a family of four from Broken Hill travelling on the Barrier Highway near
the town of Yunta, 280 km north-east of Adelaide, when it rolled, a police spokesman said.

The three other occupants of the vehicle - a woman, a man and a 10-year-old boy - were
injured in the accident, just after 3pm (CDT).

The girl's death takes the South Australian toll for the Easter holiday period to four.

A woman was taken to Adelaide's Flinders Medical Centre with life-threatening injuries
after a single-car rollover on Kangaroo Island's West End Highway.

Twelve of the deaths this Easter were in New South Wales where packed, often pot-holed
holiday roads were pounded by rain over the past few days.

Two people died in Victoria and one in Western Australia, while Tasmania, the ACT and the
Northern Territory remained fatality-free.

Police said thousands of motorists were caught speeding, with speed a factor in most
accidents.

Police have warned motorists to take extra care returning home from the Easter break,
particularly where roads are wet.

(Note: AAP's Easter road toll figures are for the period 0001 Thursday April 1 to 2359
Monday April 5. Some states and territories have different toll periods).

AAP knr/cjh

KEYWORD: TOLL NATIONAL NIGHTLEAD

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