A Cal­i­for­nia woman was killed in­stant­ly and an­oth­er in­jured yes­ter­day when a car, head­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion, crossed the road­way and ca­reened in­to them as they stood at the side of the road.

Po­lice iden­ti­fied the vic­tim as Pre­ma­tee Lal­too, 45, of Rail­way Road.

Lal­too and the oth­er woman were sell­ing or­anges near the bus shed op­po­site SE­CU Cred­it Union along the South­ern Main Road, Cou­va.

Po­lice said short­ly be­fore 1.30 pm, a Black Suzu­ki Vi­tara dri­ven by a 35-year-old man, crashed in­to a bus shed, hit­ting the two women.

Of­fi­cers said that the SUV left the west­ern side of the road­way, crossed on­to the east­ern side lane and crashed in­to the two women.

Lal­too died on im­pact, while the oth­er woman, whose name was not re­leased by of­fi­cers, was rushed to the near­by hos­pi­tal. Up to late yes­ter­day evening, the sever­i­ty of her con­di­tion was al­so not re­vealed.

There have been 14 road fa­tal­i­ties for the year so far.

Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh sent con­do­lences to Lal­too’s rel­a­tives. He said he knew Lal­too as well as the dri­ver as they were his con­stituents.

He said the dri­ver and his fa­ther were re­turn­ing home af­ter do­ing dial­y­sis treat­ment.

The MP ad­vised dri­vers to ex­er­cise cau­tion on the roads, es­pe­cial­ly in ar­eas where there were road­side ven­dors and peo­ple hus­tling to put food on their ta­bles.

On Feb­ru­ary 9, Williamsville gar­den­er Rad­i­ca Mo­hammed was killed and her hus­band in­jured af­ter a car slammed in­to them, drag­ging them me­tres away from where they were. The cou­ple was wait­ing for trans­port to their gar­den.