Watch three angles of a near-miss after a car crosses the centre line of the road. Video / Supplied
An Auckland man is speaking out to warn other drivers about the dangers on our roads after his car, carrying three children, came within inches of tragedy on a high-speed rural road.
Paco (who did not want his full name used) was on holiday with three families in threecars on December 30 when the group made a trip to the thermal township of Tokaanu, just outside Tūrangi.
As he travelled along the 100km/h section of State Highway 41, with his brother-in-law in the passenger seat and three children in the back, a Toyota Aqua sped across the centre line on a slight bend.
Paco said he believed the other driver may have been distracted.
The oncoming car forced Paco to take evasive action and swerve to the left just in time for the Toyoya to scream past his window, clipping his wing mirror before its wild path also forced the car behind him to urgently pull toward the side of the road.
“Either they lost control because they were coming from a straight, or they got distracted. All I could see was this big, red blob and I quickly swerved,” Paco told the Herald.
Asked what his immediate reaction was, Paco said: “All I said was s***. The kids in the back repeated it, ‘You said the s*** word’,” he said.
He didn’t immediately think he had done enough to avoid a crash, saying he was bracing for the impact but “luckily it was just a kiss”.
Paco believes the front of the Toyota came within a foot of the rear passenger door of his Tesla and he said he knew immediately it could have been so much worse.
“It was coming straight at me and at an angle so it would have hit the front right side and . . . press against me. I would have been gone first.”
The Tesla's cameras captured just how close the two cars came to disaster.
The other two cars in his party were only one car behind and would have seen the near-carnage.
“I was very lucky,” Paco told the Herald.
Having lived in New Zealand since the early 1990s but having experience of roads overseas, Paco said drivers in New Zealand needed to take a more defensive approach and focus on being aware of potential risks instead of when they had right of way.
“I don’t think that’s the right attitude. While it’s true you have a right of way, you must also be ready.
“We don’t follow the part on the road where you [should be] keeping an eye out for dangers and things like that.”
Paco said that eight years riding motorcycles in New Zealand had honed his defensive driving and made him more keenly aware of the dangers on our roads.
“I want to let people know that these things do happen and even though you’re driving perfectly yourself, it can happen and sometimes it’s out of your control, sometimes you have some control over it.”
After carefully watching the video back to get a number plate from the Toyota, Paco reported the incident through the Roadwatch portal, set up to receive reports on non-urgent incidents of poor driving where users do not wish the offender to be prosecuted.
A police spokesperson told the Herald they had received no formal report of the incident and encouraged anyone who witnesses any dangerous driving to make a report to police, including any dashcam footage if possible.
Chris Marriner is an Auckland-based journalist covering trending news and social media. He joined the Herald in 2003 and previously worked in the Herald’s visual team.
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