'You're a psycho': Man wields tyre lever in road rage incident

A man allegedly high on drugs, who drove at 50km/h in reverse down a Dunedin street as he pursued another vehicle in a road-rage incident yesterday, remains at large. Photo / 123RF (stock image)

A man allegedly high on drugs, who drove at 50km/h in reverse down a Dunedin street as he pursued another vehicle in a road-rage incident yesterday, remains at large.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a woman who was travelling in the vehicle subjected to the man's late-morning rage said the incident began shortly after 11am, in Columba Ave, Calton Hill.

As she travelled down the narrow street in a ute, accompanied by her fiance and another person, the man in a red Mazda Familia hatchback approached their vehicle "in the middle of the road", she said.

When the man pulled alongside their ute, he stopped his car, then reversed down the street at speeds of up to 50km/h in an apparent backwards pursuit.

He then spun his vehicle around and continued following their ute towards the Southern Motorway, heading north, she said.

As both vehicles reached Lookout Point, the man stopped his vehicle and got out. He then repeatedly punched the ute the woman was travelling in, she claimed.

The group kept driving.

The man returned to his Mazda and continued to follow them.

At this point, he began yelling out the window of his vehicle and waving a tyre lever, she said.

The woman said he appeared to be "high as a kite".

"I've never seen anything like it."

She began remonstrating with the man from the window of the ute.

"I wasn't having that.

"I said, 'I'm calling the police. You're a psycho'."

At this point the man drove off, she said.

A police spokeswoman confirmed they responded to reports of a male driver punching a vehicle, but he had fled by the time they arrived.

She understood he was still at large.