I slowed and had a good look at the number plate, trying at the same time to remain aware of the scary, yelling man behind me.
The woman was still standing by the passenger door, frozen.
Parking a safe distance away, I briefly considered going over.
Instead I decided to call for help. I can't honestly say how much my own fear of the yelling man played in this.
105 or 111? Was anyone's life in immediate danger? No, I decided. He was yelling, but he wasn't hitting.
I called 105, the police non-emergency number.
In retrospect, while I think I made the right choice to call for help, rather than going over, I should've called 111 - this was a situation that could've turned physically violent in an instant, not to mention the danger the woman might've been in once out of public sight.
Fortunately, it wasn't a long wait calling 105. I was speaking to an operator within a minute. I told her where I was, what was happening and the number plate.
Family harm is not a private matter, it is a crime. Photo / File
As she kept asking questions, so many questions, about what else I could see, it happened.
Another woman began approaching the woman standing frozen by the car door. If she was afraid of the still-yelling man on the other side of the car, she didn't show it.
I don't remember why this brave woman began to leave. I couldn't hear what was being said and everything was happening so fast.
But I do remember the man, still yelling, at one point starting towards her and, immediately after, a teenage boy standing several metres back, phone to his ear.
I couldn't hear everything he said, but "you calling the cops?" was part of it.
His body language was incredibly menacing, and they retreated, the teenager tucked behind the woman.
From a distance it looked terrifying, but the frozen woman was now alone again.
Did I have it in me to go over? Should I arm myself with a shopping trolley?
The 105 operator was still asking questions. And when I looked up again, the yelling man, the frozen woman and the car were gone.
We know family violence happens.
In 2017, police attended 118,923 family violence incidents - an average of one every four minutes. And three-quarters of family violence incidents aren't reported to police, according to a New Zealand Crime and Safety Survey in 2014.
But so many of us never, or rarely, see its ugly face. And when we do, it can be hard to know what to do.
When I got home I tried to look up the police callouts website media have access to. I desperately wanted to see the job had been "closed".
If you are reading this information on the Herald website and you're worried that someone using the same computer will find out what you've been looking at, you can follow the steps at the link here to hide your visit.
Each of the websites above also have a section that outlines this process.
