The fatal crash that claimed three lives in the south Waikato was the third incident on that stretch of road on Saturday.

The trio, two men and a woman believed to be in their 20s, were killed when their four-door sedan collided head-on with a heavy truck on State Highway 1, south of the State Highway 30 intersection at Atiamuri about 2.15pm.

A crash between a car and truck on SH1?Tram Rd and SH1/Tirohanga Rd. Photo: Vesuna Jammy.

It is understood the group were from New Zealand.

Police had earlier been called to a van that struck trees near Wairakei and another crash where a truck had rolled. No one was seriously injured in either of the earlier crashes.

But the road was greasy and there was rain in the air.

Tokoroa fire chief Dave Morris said he was called to the scene with Fire Service colleagues from Rotorua and Taupo.

"When we got there, there were three occupants in the car," Morris says.

Two were dead, and emergency services were trying to save a third who died at the scene.

"It was not nice. The car was pretty crunched up. It took some time to extricate them."

Paramedics from St John Ambulance also attended the crash but there was nothing they could do for the driver of the car and its two passengers.

Diversions were in place at SH1/Tram Road and SH1/Tirohanga Road and expected to be in place until about 7.30pm.

By mid-afternoon on Saturday the vehicles had been removed from the scene, the bodies of the three dead taken to a mortuary at Taupo.

The deaths come four months after one man died and six others were hospitalised after a three-vehicle crash involving a logging truck, and two utes and in the vicinity on July 28.

South Waikato District Mayor Neil Sinclair was driving the first car to be diverted from the scene by police.

"A police car passed me and I was the first car stopped," Sinclair says.

"As I got there the policeman swung his car across the road and ran down to see what had happened. I had to backtrack."

Sinclair did not witness the crash, and was concerned to hear from police on the scene that it was the third of the day.

"We need to look and see how it happened," Sinclair, who was travelling with Chinese tourists, sys.

"We just can't afford to have fatals on this south Waikato stretch of road."

Sinclair's priority, Monday morning, would be to talk to police about the accident, he says.

"There was a little bit of rain, it had been drizzling and there was a little bit of spray."

Sinclair says it was usually a good bit of road, a sentiment echoed by South Waikato District Councillor Bill Machen who had lived in the area for 60 years.

That stretch of State Highway 1 wasn't known as an accident blackspot, he says.

"There was another there a couple of months ago when two trucks collided," Machen added. "One driver went to sleep."

Neither were seriously hurt then, Machen says.

The area is known for the murder of stop-go sign operator George Taiaroa who was shot dead on the Atiamuri Bridge in March, 2013. Quinton Winders pleaded not guilty to murdering Taiaroa on Wednesday.

The scene is a communications black spot, which hindered emergency workers as they worked at the scene.

On November 5 a woman was trapped in a crumpled car following a head-on collision with a logging truck about 500 metres north of the Atiamuri bridge over the Waikato River.

Two trucks collided at the scene on August 12.

A van and a truck collided at Atiamuri on June 3, but n one was injured.

The first crash of the year at Atiamuri was on January 2 when one person was trapped after three cars collided at the Gull petrol station.

- Stuff