A truck driver has been charged after 鈥渟hocking鈥 footage captured him overtaking two vehicles on the wrong side of the road.
The dangerous act on the Kaimai Range, State Highway 29, was caught on dashcam footage on January 7, showing the truck belonging to a Matamata-based contracting company cross double yellow lines.
鈥淭he footage shows a truck on the wrong side of the road at a passing lane,鈥 said Police commercial vehicle safety team national manager, Inspector Scott Webb.
Webb said following an investigation, police have charged a 40-year-old Tauranga man with dangerous driving.
鈥淗e has been summonsed to appear in the Tauranga District Court on February 27. As the case is before the court, we are unable to comment further.鈥
Screenshot from footage of a truck overtaking a car on the Kaimai Range between Bay of Plenty and Waikato.
It is not clear from the 29-second video, posted anonymously on social media last month, why the truck entered the oncoming lane.
The video shows the vehicle with the dashcam driving in the far left lane as cars pass it in a passing lane.
With the passing lane running out, a white car overtakes the vehicle with the dashcam and the truck uses the oncoming lane to overtake both vehicles.
The truck re-enters the left lane in front of both vehicles as the passing lane ends, and an oncoming vehicle rounds the corner ahead.
The post鈥檚 caption identified the truck as from J Swap 鈥 a contracting company based in Matamata.
Screenshot from footage of a truck overtaking a car on the Kaimai Range between Bay of Plenty and Waikato.
The caption of the post said it happened on the Kaimai Range, which is between Bay of Plenty and Waikato and crossed via State Highway 29.
鈥淛swap hard up it down the Kaimais,鈥 the comment said.
There were more than 150 comments on the video, with some calling the move 鈥渄angerous鈥 and 鈥渟hocking鈥.
Another said it would be interesting to see what the camera inside the J Swap truck showed. 鈥淸The driver] may not have had a choice ... pretty bloody scary鈥.
The Bay of Plenty Times last month asked J Swap via email if it was aware of the incident, how it was being handled with the driver, if the company had had dashcam footage to show its driver鈥檚 point of view, and what led the driver to make this manoeuvre to the wrong side of the road.
In response, J Swap said the matter was currently under investigation.
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