A unlicensed driver high on methamphetamine and speeding with her baby in the car crashed into another motorist, killing herself and the other driver, a coroner has found.
Peta Kerr, a 33-year-old mother of four, was travelling on State Highway 1 south of Amberley about 5pm on January 28, 2024 with her 7-month-old child in the car.
Coroner Mary-Ann Borrowdale said, in findings released on Monday, Kerr had left Christchurch distressed after telling the baby's father Leonard Bourton she needed to leave town because she was afraid of associates who were threatening to harm her and take her baby.
Text messages showed the pair had argued acrimoniously the day before her death, throughout the night and into the early morning. The couple were living apart, but Bourton said they were engaged to be married and intended to reconcile.
Kerr was texting with Bourton during the early afternoon and told him she was moving her belongings from her Kāinga Ora flat in Addington to Amberley.
She sent a series of videos and text messages to Bourton about 2.30pm, claiming she had been assaulted but pleaded with him not to tell anyone.
He reported the assault to police, who contacted her.
She told them she was fine and wanted to be left alone.
An ambulance arrived at her flat about 4.15pm but Kerr told them to leave.
Shortly afterwards, she placed her baby in his car seat in her unregistered 2015 Volkswagen Touareg and left for Amberley.
Bryan Kerr, a 51-year-old from New Brighton and no relation to Peta Kerr, spent January 28, 2024 fishing at South Bay, Kaikōura with long-time friend Kurt Skinner.
The pair arrived in Kaikōura about 9am and fished for four hours, smoking a cannabis joint while fishing.
After cleaning their equipment, they left South Bay about 2.30pm.
Bryan Kerr was driving his 1996 Toyota Landcruiser towing a trailer with two jet-skis, while Skinner was in the front passenger seat.
As the vehicles approached one another at the Leithfield culvert, Peta's Touareg - travelling at about 117km/h - failed to take a sweeping left-hand bend and crossed the centre line, crashing head on into Bryan's Landcruiser.
Skinner described seeing the Touareg drift across the road towards them.
Peta did not appear to make any attempt to correct the vehicle back into the left lane, he said.
He yelled to Bryan, but there no time for him to take action before being hit, Skinner said.
Other witnesses confirmed Peta had crossed the centre line and drove straight into the Landcruiser and that there was nothing Bryan could have done to avoid the crash.
Both drivers were critically injured and died at the scene. Both were wearing seatbelts.
Skinner was seriously injured and taken to hospital by helicopter.
Peta's baby was also taken to hospital with minor injuries.
The driver of a third vehicle, following Bryan, tried to avoid the crash and flipped onto its side but the occupant was uninjured.
Postmortems found both drivers died from blunt force trauma consistent with the crash.
Bruises were found on Peta's body consistent with the video clip she had sent Bourton following the alleged assault.
A separate police investigation into the alleged assault found no evidence one had occurred.
Testing showed Peta had a methamphetamine blood level of 3.9mg/L, which the coroner said was five-and-a-half times the "median recreational-use methamphetamine level".
The Serious Crash Unit found the road was clear and the weather fine, and neither vehicle had any fault that contributed to the crash.
Peta never held a driver's license and had also been forbidden from driving.
Bourton said Peta had poor vision and needed glasses, which might have been broken during her claimed assault, and she had not been taking her mental health medications and was exhibiting paranoia.
Coroner Mary-Ann Borrowdale said Peta's medical history included complex post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety with depression, borderline personality disorder, substance abuse with possible associated psychotic episodes, and previous suicide attempts and self-harm.
But there was no evidence Peta intended to crash, Borrowdale said.
While Peta had some history of being suicidal, the crash was caused accidentally by a combination of speed, fatigue, upset and intoxication, she said.
Borrowdale made no formal recommendations, but said Peta's actions "could easily have cost the life of her cherished baby son, in addition to that of Bryan Kerr".
Borrowdale highlighted unlicensed driving, methamphetamine use, speed, drug driving, fatigue and "emotional overwhelm".
Driving while distressed was an under-acknowledged hazard and could cause risk-taking, impulsivity, poor judgement, reduced awareness to the environment and slower reaction times, Borrowdale said.
That both drivers had consumed drugs ought to greatly concern road users and lawmakers, she said.
The coroner welcomed the new police roadside drug testing regime.
However, she noted Bryan Kerr's cannabis use played no role in the crash.
"He had no chance to avoid colliding with the speeding oncoming vehicle in the wrong lane."
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