Reversed bit too far out of way
IT could have been a tragic story but, luckily, it’s just a hilarious one.
A Southland truck driver caught the moment a tourist had to reverse out of a onelane bridge after allegedly running a red light into oncoming traffic and ended up down a bank.
The incident happened on Friday afternoon on the main road to Central Otago.
Blair Powell, who shot the video, told the New Zealand Herald the incident involved two Asian tourists driving a rental vehicle.
Mr Powell said he had been driving along the road behind them for a while and their driving was ‘‘far from flash’’.
‘‘They passed me at speed at first,’’ he recalled, adding that, once they approached Beaumont Bridge, a onelane bridge, they did not even seem to notice the traffic light was there.
‘‘They went straight through the red light, completely ignored it,’’ he said.
A Toyota Hilux truck can be seen approaching from the other direction and the driver in the rental vehicle has to reverse out of the bridge and give way to the truck.
Mr Powell, who lives in Gore, said despite the appalling driving, he did not expect to see them reversing all the way down the slope.
Noone was injured in the incident and, according to Mr Powell, police were called and took a statement and told the driver to arrange to get the rental car towed.
The video, uploaded to Facebook on Friday, went viral and was viewed more than 524,000 times in just 16 hours. — NZME