Vacationing Beijing Drivers Cause Havoc on New Zealand Roads

Seems that some vacationing Beijingers on Chinese New Year sprees in New Zealand are taking their bad driving skills with them.

A Beijing family of five, including one baby on board, holidaying in the South Island of New Zealand had their travel abruptly halted when a vigilante citizen confiscated their rental car keys because they were driving erratically, consistently crossing the center line into oncoming traffic.

This distressing ordeal follows just days after another Beijing driver in New Zealand was charged with causing the death of a five-year-old child along with five other associated charges of dangerous driving causing injury in Dunedin's District Court.

While about 80 percent of the world adheres to driving on the right lane side of the road, New Zealand traffic moves on the left lane.

In the wrong-side-of-the-road driving incident, the driver was spotted heading towards the picturesque Franz Josef glacier, crossing over the center line multiple times. A New Zealand driver following behind noticed, and managed to confiscate their keys and dropped them through the mail slot at a local off-duty police station.

Police reviewed traffic footage and noted the driver had indeed been driving erratically. The rental car company was notified and cancelled the rental agreement as no one else in the family had a suitable licence.

The family have since continued on with their vacation by hiring a chartered plane (and hopefully a pilot that knows how to fly).

Truth be told, it's not just Beijing drivers that are causing the problem, though police indicated that accidents spike during Chinese New Year when tourism from China is at its peak.

Only 6 percent of traffic incidents nationwide in New Zealand involve foreign tourists. However, in Westland, a heavily touristed region with some of the most picturesque landscapes in the world made even more famous by being featured in Lord of the Rings, a whopping 37 percent of traffic accidents involve foreign tourists, the New Zealand Press reports.

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