Road toll rises to 15

The Christmas holiday road death toll has risen to 15, following the deaths of a teenager in Tasmania and a man in his 60s in NSW.

The scene of a car crash in Eastern Creek, Sydney

The Christmas holiday road death toll has risen to 15, following the death of a driver in Tasmania. (AAP)

A German teenager was killed in a single-vehicle accident in a remote part of Tasmania.

The 18-year-old woman's body was found in a vehicle that rolled on a dirt road in the Leven Canyon area on Friday afternoon.

Her 20-year-old companion is being treated in hospital.

Police said the pair were tourists and were on a narrow dirt road when the driver lost control.

In NSW, a man aged in his 60s who was struck by a car on Christmas Eve died in hospital, police said on Saturday.

The man's death brings the state's holiday road toll to five, police said.

NSW Police Traffic and Highway Patrol commander, Assistant Commissioner John Hartley, said simple safety messages were being ignored, unnecessarily putting lives at risk.

"Drivers taking unnecessary risks on the roads should remember that there is no such thing as breaking the road rules 'safely'," he said.

Thirty people had been charged with drink-driving in the state on Friday, he said, while 2800 had been caught breaking road rules.

The national road toll period runs from midnight on December 23, 2013, until midnight on January 3, 2014, local times, in line with the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Board.


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Source: AAP


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