South Island police warn tourist drivers often don't know the road rules

A South Canterbury police officer says 80 per cent of tickets given out in his area in the past couple of days were to foreign drivers.

Twizel Senior Constable Bruce Francis told Fairfax a number of complaints had been lodged about tourist drivers and rental cars on State Highway 8 in the Mackenzie District in recent days.

"It is not unusual to be dealing with two or three on the go at once.

"And that's the ones you are able to get to, there are plenty more that come through," Francis told Fairfax. "Don't assume that they [tourists] know the road rules, they are supposed to know but they often don't."

He warned people not to follow rental cars too closely because it was not uncommon for them to suddenly pull over when they saw scenery or a rest stop.

This comes after Timaru woman Amy Hollamby shared her story of making a "citizen's arrest" on Christmas Day after watching dangerous driving by a tourist.

She was horrified to watch the other driver pull out behind her across yellow lines and pass the line of traffic on SH8 about five minutes from Tekapo.

The line of cars all slowed down and pulled to the side as the other driver overtook, as there was no room for her to pull back in before the corner, but "she stayed on the wrong side of the road the whole way round".

When the driver pulled in upon reaching Tekapo, Hollamby, along with the two other overtaken cars, pulled over and boxed the driver in so she could not drive away.

Police arrived and took the woman's keys.

The holiday road toll now stands at seven with a week still to go in the official holiday period. Last year 19 people died in holiday crashes.

• Two people died in a two-car crash on the Waimate Highway in Glenavy on Boxing Day.

• Rotorua woman Jie Hu died in a crash on SH5 at Hamurana on Christmas Eve. Three others were injured.

• Waipukurau man Harry Nepe-Apatu died in a crash on Pourere Rd in Central Hawke's Bay on Christmas Eve.

• Boney Biju died on his way home from his 21st birthday party after his car left the road and hit a tree near Hanmer Springs on Christmas Eve.

• Fijian national Lalita Devi was a passenger in a car that crashed on SH14 at Maungatapere on Saturday.

• On Saturday, taxi driver Abdul Raheem Fahad Syed, 29, died in central Auckland after his car was hit by another.