New Zealand. Clean, green, lush landscapes that look like they’ve been CGI enhanced. Home of Hobbits, Flight of the Conchords and the mighty All Blacks. Great wine, tasty kaimoana, and hospitable locals. Unless you happen to be a tourist who’s having a bit of trouble behind the wheel.
Last weekend Robert Penman and his wife Trish came around a corner in an 80km zone on the Otago Peninsula to find two Asian tourists parked in the middle of the road so they could get out and take photos.
Penman says when his wife confronted them, they were more interested on taking photos – and seemed to think what they were doing was OK. He decided to stop the tourists driving further, after calling the police.
He says he would do it again. “If the driving was unsafe, and it needed to be sorted out to be deemed to be safe, then yes I would.”
The week before, a Haast woman watched a rental car cross the centre line several times before taking matters into her own hands and confiscating his keys. Sheri Wright at first thought the driver may have been drowsy.
“Just very very erratic driving and the serious concern was the crossing - every left-hand turn he was crossing into the opposite lane.”
“He actually stopped in at his accommodation so we just pulled in behind him and basically said 'look you're driving dangerously I'm going to take your keys’.”
The confiscations are two of at least five such incidents in the past few weeks. It’s not exactly the kind of thing a country where tourism is a major industry wants to have in international headlines.
Police say rather than taking matters into their own hands, people should call 111 or *555. And others think the actions smack of racism and vigilante action.
Chris Roberts, the Tourism Industry Association’s chief executive, said about 5 per cent of crashes are caused by visitors and that rate has not changed in the past decade, though the nationality mix of tourists has. “It is mostly the Asian drivers that are getting targeted by these actions,” he said. “When it was mostly people who looked like us behind the wheel, somehow we were more tolerant.”
Prime Minister John Key says motorists should stop taking the law into their own hands
“I really would advise people not to do that. I think people taking the law into their own hands is not sensible. We see that with people from time-to-time, for instance, if they see someone who's clearly under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The very sensible thing to do is ring 111.”
Cover image: Earl Walker/123RF