The visitor from Ireland was stopped by a police patrol on State Highway 25A between Kopu and Hikuai on Sunday afternoon.
Rather than tying the kayak to the roof of his car lengthways, the tourist had attached the kayak crossways, so its ends were protruding over either side of the car.
District road policing manager Inspector Freda Grace said the man told police he had secured the kayak that way so it would not damage his car. "To make matters worse the officer was already on her way to a vehicle crash, and this driver's behaviour could very easily have caused another - imagine if he had encountered a cyclist driving like this," she said.
Update: It turns out that the driver wasn't Irish, but Jonathan Waters from Auckland, and he disputes the version of events as described in the police report.
2 comments:
This story reminds me of an old _Nick Knatterton_ comic (Germany, late 50's) titled, "Freitag Abends um Neun" ("Friday Evening at Nine"), wherein, on the night in question, numerous muggings occur in a city (regularly). It all comes down to a workman whose undersecured ladder (atop his truck) swivels sideways when he takes a right turn.
Lurker111
Note: "Nick Knatterton" was Germany's first "superhero"--a sort of cross between Sherlock Holmes and Maxwell Smart (though Smart came later, of course). There are omnibus collections available on amazon.de (though the omnibus collections really needed more editorial content explaining some of the contemporary political humor).
I think he probably had it tied the right direction to start off with. But crappy knots and not paying attention led to this "accident waiting to happen".
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