One dead after driver flees checkpoint

DEREK FLYNN/Marlborough Express DEREK FLYNN/Marlborough Express DEREK FLYNN/Marlborough Express DEREK FLYNN/Marlborough Express DEREK FLYNN/Marlborough Express

ACCIDENT: Blenheim volunteer firefighters work to free a woman after a car accident in central Blenheim.

INVESTIGATION: Police at the scene of a fatal motor vehicle accident in central Blenheim.

ACCIDENT: Blenheim volunteer firefighters work to free those injured in a car accident in central Blenheim.

HELP: Firefighters and ambulance crew help a patient injured in a car accident after a car fled from a police checkpoint in central Blenheim and collided with another vehicle.

ACCIDENT: Blenheim volunteer firefighters work to free those injured in a car accident after a car fled from a police checkpoint in central Blenheim and collided with another.

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Police say they were not pursuing a driver who fled a police checkpoint in Blenheim and hit another car, killing its driver.

The 20-year-old Blenheim woman was breath-tested at the Alfred St checkpoint outside Blenheim School but took off after alcohol was detected and she was told to pull over. Her Toyota crashed into a Nissan on the roundabout between Hutcheson St and Nelson St, killing the 51-year-old drive, also from Blenheim.

The crash happened at about 9.45pm. Nobody else was in either vehicle.

Detective Richard Rolton of Blenheim police said the police officer who followed the woman in his patrol car was about 400m behind when the crash happened.

He said the officer rounded the corner from Alfred St onto Hutcheson St to see the woman's tail lights disappearing over the Taylor River bridge.

The officer then saw ''a flurry of smoke'' ahead which was steam coming from one of the cars' radiators after the crash, Mr Rolton said.

''This was not a pursuit.''

Three Blenheim traffic officers were running the checkpoint which Mr Rolton said was just part of their normal duties.

The driver of the Toyota was taken by ambulance to Wairau Hospital with minor chest injuries. She was treated and discharged.

- The Marlborough Express