Watch: Rental car inches away from head-on collision

The moment a tourist driver came within close to a head-on crash. Photo / Supplied

A Greymouth truck driver has recounted the horror moment a tourist driver came within inches of colliding head-on with another car, while driving to Christchurch yesterday.

Dythaniel Hart, who has been driving for Aratuna Freighters for six years, was driving his Mainfreight truck near the Deception River, between Jacksons and Otira, when a tourist driver in a white, Ezi rental car overtook him on a right-hand bend - narrowly missing an oncoming car coming the other way.

"It was very dangerous. I'm surprised they didn't touch, they were just inches apart. The other driver had to brake and went into the rocks on the side of the road," Mr Hart said.

video-1466500265 from Greymouth Star on Vimeo.

It was not the only instance of bad driving he observed with the same driver on yesterday's journey.

"He started doing everything stupid, running red lights at Arthur's Pass (roadworks), overtaking other cars dangerously."

Mr Hart said that as soon as he got into cellphone range he called the police bad driving hotline and reported the incident. He also captured the heart-in-mouth incident on the dashcam in his truck.

Near-misses were all too frequent on State Highway 73, he said.

"I see it every day with tourist drivers. They even stop on the steepest parts of Arthur's Pass to take photos."

- Greymouth Star