Caught - for good driving

Robin Steele, with Northland Regional Council transport operations manager Chris Powell, says he was confused to receive a phone call saying he was getting a prize for not speeding.

Whangarei motorist Robin Steele was baffled when the garage that services his car told him he had been busted being good.

Kelly's Automotive administrator Sue Windust contacted Mr Steele, 86, after reading a Northern Advocate story about difficulty thanks to privacy issues in locating the winners of a reward scheme for sensible drivers.

"I went through to see if the rego plates matched any of our customers," she said.

One was Mr Steel's so she rang him to tell him, but he admits being initially baffled by the news he had won an $150 supermarket voucher for safe driving.

Another driver, a young woman, has also come forward to claim her prize.

The well-intentioned Safe Speed Driver programme, backed by RoadSafe Northland, Whangarei Police, Whangarei District Council and Northland Regional Council, used volunteers to record the licence plates of those making an effort to drive to the conditions during May and June.

Six winners were drawn over six weeks. Until now nobody had claimed their $150 voucher despite widespread publication of the lucky licence plates.

So the organisers came to the Northern Advocate to help and the first two have now been tracked down.

Privacy laws meant police could not use their databases to find the winners.

The remaining plates are TS5313, GFM335, HMU961 and GCR178. Unclaimed prizes expire on July 31.