A woman allegedly tried to drive an unregistered, unwarranted car with flat tyres and vice grips replacing the missing steering wheel, police say.
Rotorua police investigated a suspicious, abandoned vehicle on State Highway 5, Mamaku, on Thursday morning and found an unregistered, unwarranted vehicle with a missing steering wheel parkedin a rural driveway.
Police said on Facebook that the occupants had left the car there days earlier.
An officer saw the vehicle being driven a short time later towards Tirau, approaching a roadwork site controlled with a stop/go sign.
The driver was stopped and allegedly found to be controlling the vehicle with vice grips. The vehicle also allegedly had bald and flat tyres. It was issued with a Pink Sticker and ordered off the road.
This was the second case of a vehicle allegedly being driven with vice grips this week that Bay of Plenty police have dealt with.
Less than 24 hours earlier, a driver also allegedly using vice grips to steer, was involved in a crash with another vehicle on Pyes Pa Rd, south of Tauranga.
A 28-year-old woman was to appear in Rotorua District Court on a number of charges including dangerous driving.
