another insult to the dead

The Wanganui truck driver who killed a young German tourist near Bulls in January has been disqualified from driving for 12 months and ordered to pay $5000 reparation to the dead woman's family. The reparation is a payment for emotional harm and suffering.

Mia Pusch, 19, had been backpacking through New Zealand since October last year. She died on January 5 after she was hit by the truck driven by Cleeve, while riding near Bulls.

In the final entry of her online blog on December 30, Miss Pusch had written:
"When one is a cyclist on New Zealand roads, one is not only torn from one's daydreams by dive-bombing magpies but is more often threatened by a more nasty species that really requires more attention: truck drivers," she wrote. "They swerve past the cyclists, who are struggling under their own steam, at a break-neck speed mainly within only a half-metre to a metre ..."