Driver scares
NATIONAL: A Timaru woman said she had ‘‘never been so scared’’ when a tourist’s driving near Tekapo on Christmas Day forced her to stop and reprimand the driver.
A Timaru woman said she had ‘‘never been so scared’’ when a tourist’s driving near Tekapo on Christmas Day forced her to stop and reprimand the driver.
Amy Hollamby was stunned when a tourist vehicle overtook her family’s car and three other vehicles on a blind corner.
She said there were four cars travelling behind a slow moving bus on the outskirts of Tekapo when the vehicle behind the car she was driving with her family in it overtook on yellow no passing lines around a blind corner.
‘‘There was a bus driving slowly but not really slow, there were four cars behind it, us being the third, and the driver of the fourth car behind us decided to pull out and try to pass all four vehicles. You just could not see what was coming.
‘‘I thought: oh my God; I’ve never been so scared; I thought: this is it, we are going to see a major crash here.
‘‘It was on yellow lines, that’s no passing, obviously, every Kiwi knows this.’’
She said ‘‘thankfully’’ there were no vehicles coming towards them but ‘‘it’s just ridiculous I was so angry’’.
Hollamby said she followed the vehicle as it pulled into the Tekapo township and got out of her car and made a citizen’s arrest.
‘‘The driver of another vehicle was also really angry and he told the driver they could not drive like that.’’ Hollamby’s husband, Nigel, alerted a police officer, she said.
‘‘He didn’t hesitate and took the keys off the driver straight away; I thought hallelujah. Hopefully this saved some poor policeman, fire or ambulance staff from scraping a body off the road.’’
Hollamby said the driver had made her way from Christchurch on Christmas Day after arriving from China on Christmas Eve.
She was not sure what the driver did next but assumed the rental car company had been contacted to pick the car up.
People should not be scared to act if they saw horrific driving, Hollamby said.
Call *555 or stop and talk to the driver, she said.
Mid-south Canterbury area commander Inspector Dave Gaskin urged people to contact police about dangerous driving.
‘‘Ring *555, it will be answered by someone and we are notified and as soon as possible we will be there.’’
Police would usually contact the rental car company and cancel the car or if there was more than one eligible driver then someone else could drive, he said.