Police ignored evidence of Twizel incident that nearly killed 8 people

A Queenstown resident has detailed how he almost died as a campervan with two adults and three unrestrained children on board overtook him at 140 kilometers an hour straight into oncoming traffic.

The incident happened in February on State Highway 8 near Pukaki, the same stretch of road where over 20 people were injured in a number of incidents last week.

Software engineer Romain Sacchettini recorded the incident on his dashcam and also managed to then catch up with the camper van, still driving at 140 kilometres an hour, as it neared the Lake Pukaki scenic viewing spot on SH8.

He photographed the driver and passenger and also has told Crux today that there were three children in the back of the vehicle, all under 10 years old and not wearing seat belts.

The driver and passenger of the camper van, photographed by Mr Sacchettini near Lake Pukaki on SH8

Full details of the entire situation were then submitted to police, including Google drive links to multiple pieces of evidence including GPS coordinates and time stamps.

The video shows the camper van on the wrong side of the road between Omarama and Twizel as two other vehicles approached. Mr Sacchettini says it was only the fact that he and the van driver on the other side of the road carried out a full emergency braking maneuver that avoided at least eight deaths.

"My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding." he told Crux today. "But then the Maui camper van carried on without stopping. Without slowing down. On the contrary, it speeded up."

Mr Sacchettini managed to catch up with the camper van to get its registration number but he had to drive at 140 kmh to achieve that

"I remember then speeding up to catch up with the camper van and take photos of the plate numbers. And I remember having to go up to 140kmh on my speedometer. Which is illegal, and I did so to take a photo of the plate numbers also try and get them to stop."

He eventually caught up with the vehicle and captured both the registration number and photos of the vehicle occupants.

Maui says it remotely monitors rental vehicles for speed.

Crux asked Tourism Holdings Ltd, the owners of Maui, if it had any way of managing the risk of speeding rental drivers.

Matthew Harvey is THL's Chief Operating Officer and he told Crux this afternoon that all drivers are required to go through a safe driving form before heading off.

"We also have telematics in our vehicles that monitor speed, so we get visibility of people that are offending. Then we contact those people and try and encourage them to slow down and drive responsibly.

Mr Harvey admits that the system has its limitations. "This is if it's for a prolonged period. So generally the system doesn't pick up just overtaking, but it's got to be for a certain amount of time."

"We can't penalise people as such. We're not a law enforcement or anything like that. So if the police haven't taken action, there's not much we can do in that space."

Mr Harvey had no details as to whether the February SH8 incident was recorded by their system. He did say that quite a significant of drivers were contacted to draw attention to high speed driving.

Police silent on lack of response.

Crux has asked police for details on why Mr Sacchettini's detailed video and statement have produced no response or action since February.

As at 5.15 pm July 22nd no police reply has been received following a 2.00 pm deadline.