Tourists are being scared off New Zealand roads by reports of locals taking the law into their hands and confiscating the car keys of visitors they think are driving dangerously, Radio New Zealand reports.
At least five sets of tourists' car keys have been grabbed in recent weeks by concerned drivers - three in the past fortnight.
Don and Cynthia Sparks, who were visiting from Canada, said they were pleased they decided to catch buses and trains during their New Zealand visit instead of driving and called New Zealanders' attitudes towards foreign drivers 'frightening'.
Lu, a tourist from Beijing, had also chosen not to get behind the wheel during her trip. She said many Chinese tourists were petrified by the reports of New Zealander's confiscating keys.
“They don't know who they are, because they didn't wear a uniform like a policeman,” Lu said.
University of Auckland academic Changzoo Song said he suspected some of the key taking incidents were really cases of road rage, which had escalated when the driver turned out to be a foreigner.
In the case of the latest incident, involving a foreign driver on the Otago Peninsula, Dr Song said a verbal warning was probably all that was needed to sound the alert about dodgy driving.
“I would have warned the people that were blocking the road rather than taking their key because that's a rather serious action - taking someone's property.”
The tourists spoken to by Radio New Zealand all agreed that New Zealand was a beautiful and amazing country but they said issues of poor driving were best left to police and not the locals.
