Detectives are trying to piece together the moments leading up to a fatal crash on a motorway south of Wollongong in which a teenager left a moving car at high speed before being struck by a truck and killed last week.
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A number of vehicles tried to swerve to avoid the 19-year-old woman, from Sydney's south-west, who tumbled out of the passenger's seat door and on to the north-bound lanes of the M1 Motorway at Dapto during peak hour on Friday.
Exactly why she left the car is now the focus of the police investigation.
Police said a tipper truck was unable to avoid hitting the woman on the motorway, which has a speed limit of 100km/h at the crash site, near the Fowlers Road overpass. The woman died at the scene.
A witness who drove past the scene in the opposite direction shortly after the crash said the truck driver was simply devastated.
"The poor truck driver's face will haunt me," she wrote online.
"I have never seen someone so sad and in shock and the poor man was just staring at the poor girl covered in a white sheet. So many lives ruined and the poor girls family. Tragic."
Police said the woman was a passenger in a car being driven by a 20-year-old man, from Barrack Heights south of Wollongong. Their vehicle had swerved on the motorway immediately before the woman left the vehicle, police said.
Acting Inspector Kylie Macfarlane, from the Lake Illawarra Local Area Command, said the circumstances of how and why the woman left the vehicle at high speed still had not yet been determined.
Investigators would examine the days and moments leading up to the crash, which occurred at 7.45am on Friday.
Acting Inspector Macfarlane said the investigation, carried out by detectives from the Lake Illawarra Local Area Command with involvement from the Crash Investigation Unit, was expected to take a considerable amount of time.
"This was quite a daunting situation for the people that were in attendance, as well as other people at the scene," she said.
Paramedics treated a number of people at the crash scene for shock.
Both the truck driver and the 20-year-old man who was driving the vehicle were taken to Wollongong Hospital for mandatory testing.
Police have urged anyone who saw the crash, and who hasn't already spoken to police, to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit the Crime Stoppers online reporting page.
