Thirteen people have been killed on Australia’s roads over the Christmas period, with seven dying on Christmas Day.
Two passengers died on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria just after 5pm (AEDT) on Sunday, after their car careered into a tree.
The driver suffered shoulder and abdominal injuries and was taken to Colac Hospital in a stable condition.
The deaths bring the Victorian road toll for the holiday period to three.
Meanwhile in NSW, two people were fatally injured early on Christmas Day when their car veered off the road and smashed into a steel guard rail in Tweed Heads on the far north coast.
The male driver, 49, died at the scene from severe injuries he received in the crash, while his female passenger, 50, died later in Tweed Heads Hospital.
A few hours later, near Tamworth in northern NSW, a man in his 20s died when his car crashed into a tree.
The three Christmas Day deaths took the NSW road toll for the Christmas period to four.
On Christmas Eve, an 83-year-old man died after his vehicle and a utility collided on the Kings Highway at Warri in the state’s south.
In South Australia, a 29-year-old driver was killed in a car rollover on Christmas Day just four kilometres from his Kangaroo Island home, taking the state’s holiday road toll to two.
In the Northern Territory, the first road death for the Christmas season was a 37-year-old man who was struck by a road train near Elliot, about half-way between Darwin and Alice Springs, early on Christmas Day.
In Queensland the road toll remains at two and in Western Australia it remains at one.
There have been no fatalities in Tasmania or the ACT.
(EDS: The national road toll period runs from 0001 December 23, 2011 until 2359 January 3, 2012, local times, in line with the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Board.)
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