Three family members are dead after their car collided with another that minutes earlier had been seen “driving erratically” by Queensland Police.

The crash, involving a black Mercedes wagon and a silver Mercedes hatch, happened at Bonogin in the Gold Coast hinterland around 5pm on Friday.

It was just a kilometre from where police had tried to intercept the black car driven by a 46-year-old Bonogin woman, who evaded the officers.

Gold Coast District Officer Chief Superintendent Craig Hanlon said the officers opted not to pursue the car because of the “conduct of the driver” and because “it was too great a risk”.

“A very short time later members of the public approached that police vehicle and advised that approximately a kilometre up the road … that Mercedes had collided with another Mercedes, a silver car,” he told reporters on Saturday.

The silver Mercedes was pushed into a power pole that fell onto the black car, which then caught fire.

The officers got the woman out of the black car.

They got two of the three people out of the silver car and performed CPR before the ambulance arrived.

But all three – two women and one man, aged 79, 70 and 25 – died at the scene. Police said they were members of one family.

‘Horrifying scene’

Chief Superintendent Hanlon it was a horrifying scene.

The tragedy has lifted the state’s road death toll to 296 for 2022, which is the worst year in a decade.

“The frustrating thing for police is, some of those lives lost could have been saved if people had done the right thing on the roads,” he said.

The woman in the black car was taken to hospital where she is in a stable condition with numerous fractures and other injuries.

While the crash is now under investigation Chief Superintendent Hanlon said it was too early to say if and when charges would be laid. He could not say if alcohol was involved.

The surviving woman and the three victims were all locals.

The force’s internal watchdog – the Ethical Standards Command – is also looking into the incident.

Witnesses and anyone with dashcam or CCTV footage of the crash or moments leading up to it are being urged to come forward.

-AAP