A heartbroken mother has shared her grief after losing two children and their father in three different crashes on the roads.
Traci Ellis wants to emphasise the importance of taking care throughout the holiday season after 370 people lost their lives on New Zealand roads before the year’s end.
‘It’s devastating because there are lots of families who are going to go through the same thing that I am going through and their life is never, ever going to be the same again,’ Ellis told the NZ Herald.
Traci Ellis lost of her 9-year-old daughter Kara Ellis (pictured) in 2000 in a car accident
Ms Ellis then lost the father of her children Tynan Alderson (pictured) in 2009 in another crash
The Blenheim-based woman is appealing to drivers now the Christmas/New Year holiday road toll is underway.
After the loss of her 9-year-old daughter Kara Ellis in 2000, the father of her children Tynan Alderson in 2009 and her son Kayne Alderson three years later, Ellis wants others to avoid the pain she suffers.
Ellis now feels broken after losing her ‘neat’ son, who would do anything for anybody.
‘I didn’t get to do a lot and say a lot to my son before he passed away…I don’t get to see 21sts, weddings, grandchildren and so I hold a lot of resentment.’
She places a special importance of avoiding drink driving after her son and once-partner died with alcohol in their systems while behind the wheel.
Her son was killed, 10 days after his 18th birthday, when he git a power pole after driving drunk in the South Island.
The mother then lost her son Kayne Alderson (pictured) three years later in yet another crash
Ellis now wishes he had friends who had stopped him despite admitting it was wrong for him to be driving.
Ben Beazley, Kayne’s friend and owner of the car he was driving, was sentenced to 200 hours of community work and six months supervision in 2013, after admitting to a charge of aiding and abetting a driver he knew was under the influence of alcohol.
‘To me this is very important because if you can save one person’s life then you know that you’ve done something good,’ she said.