Tourist crashes into car workshop

The rented car smashed into the front of a car workshop. Photo / supplied

A rental car driven by a tourist smashed through the plate glass window of a Hokitika automotive workshop, giving workers a fright and causing some $40,000 of damage.

The North American tourist was was parking by the kerbside outside Total Automotive on Revell St about 3.30pm on Tuesday when he suddenly lost control, police said.

Constable Sonja Rea said the man's foot apparently slipped off the brake during a reverse parking manoeuvre and the car suddenly accelerated.

The man had been parking the car on behalf of his daughter and was not the nominated driver on the rental car agreement.

No one was injured in the crash but the combined cost of fixing both the car and the Total Automotive shopfront was estimated to be up to $40,000.

Ms Rea said the question of who would pay for the repairs had yet to be sorted out.

Total Automotive owner James Steward said it was lucky no one had been killed or injured.

Police were continuing their inquiries yesterday.

It comes on the back of a spate of crashes on our roads involving foreign drivers, including eight deaths in as many days last month.

In response, New Zealanders have been taking the law into their owns hands and dispensing vigilante justice.

Police are aware of five occasions where concerned motorists have taken keys off rental car drivers.

In a recent incident, a Dunedin man snatched the car keys from a tourist who had stopped to take photos on Otago Peninsula, causing eight vehicles to back up.

However, legal experts, police, the Ministry of Transport, the Rental Vehicle Association and Prime Minister John Key have warned against the practice.

- additional reporting NZME. News Service