Drivers returning home from Easter holidays have been urged to slow down after a string of tragic road deaths over the long weekend.
Since Friday, at least 14 people have been killed on roads, including four deaths in Queensland.
There has been one death in Victoria, two in Tasmania, three in South Australia, one in the Northern Territory and three in NSW.
Data from Western Australia has yet to be processed.With many Australians expected to return from Easter vacations on Monday, police are calling on drivers to take care.
“Behind all of those numbers is a person, a family member, a loved one,” Queensland Police Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler told Nine’s Today program.
“What we’re seeing time and time again is dangerous driving behaviours … playing a part in all of these tragedies.”
A Victorian mother of four was among those killed on Queensland’s roads.
The 51-year-old was a passenger in a Ford hatchback travelling on School Road in Logan Reserve, south of Brisbane, about 9pm on Saturday when her car was hit head-on by a Ford Falcon utility.
The victim, who had been returning from a family celebration, died at the scene.
Her 21-year-old niece sustained serious leg and back injuries, while a one-year-old child in the car miraculously escaped harm.
Investigations are ongoing and police are exploring whether it is linked to hooning incidents in the state’s southeast during the weekend.
At Merriwa in the NSW upper Hunter area, a car crashed into an embankment after leaving the road on Sunday night.
Paramedics treated a man but he died.
A few hours earlier, emergency services were called to South West Rocks on the NSW mid north coast.
They found a motorbike rider had crashed on the road before becoming trapped under a nearby vehicle.
Emergency crews worked to free him before he was treated by paramedics for critical injuries, but he was unable to be saved.
On Saturday, in far north Queensland, a 31-year-old man lost control of his quad bike on a local road in East Palmerston, a rural farming area near Innisfail.
His green Kawasaki bike struck a pole and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Nearly two hours later, a black Honda motorbike collided with a Kia Cerato in Thornlands, about 30km southeast of the Brisbane city centre.
The 18-year-old rider died after being transported to hospital with critical injuries. The Kia driver was uninjured.
On Tasmania’s west coast, an 81-year-old passenger died after an all-terrain vehicle crashed and rolled at Macquarie Heads beach, landing at the water’s edge.
Members of the public discovered the vehicle partially submerged and the man, who had sustained critical injuries, was taken to hospital before his death.
In South Australia, two men, one riding a Honda motorcycle and the other a Suzuki, died in a collision at Paracombe in the Adelaide Hills about 2.30pm on Saturday.
Another South Australian man, riding a Harley Davidson, died on Friday after he crashed into a traffic light, police said.
Meanwhile, in NSW, a man in his 40s travelling with several other motorbike riders, crashed on the Monaro Highway near Cooma on Friday and died.
Traffic is expected to be heavier across many parts of Australia on Monday as the Easter break comes to an end.
“It may take you a little longer to get home, but get home safely, don’t race the GPS, be patient,” NSW Police assistant commissioner David Driver told Nine’s Today program.
More than 1336 people have died on Australia’s roads in the 12 months to February, according to the federal government figures, marking a 4.4 per cent increase from the same time the previous year.
