A truck driver whose dash-cam captured several near-head-on collisions in 20 minutes of his daily drive on a South Canterbury highway says he's becoming numb to reckless passing around him.
Bevan, who did not want his last name or the company he drives for published, has been cataloguing close calls on the roads between Cromwell and Christchurch route since he started driving the route two years ago.
February 16 was the worst day of driving he had ever come across, he said.
In the video, posted to his YouTube page Outdoors With Rev, an oncoming car has to brake to a complete halt in an 100kmh area on State Highway 79 just out of Fairlie to prevent a head on collision with an overtaking car.
Three minutes later on the Skipton Bridge, a four-wheel-drive in front of him swerves over the centre line, nearly colliding with an oncoming ute. The 4WD continues to cross the centre line repeatedly for the next 15 minutes, culminating in a failed pass that forces an oncoming car onto the gravel verge to prevent a collision.
READ MORE: Dash cam records near-misses
"I was convinced someone was going to die that day," Bevan said.
"The camera doesn't even do justice to how scary those passing manoeuvres were. The worst thing is that the people that drive this road regularly with me, we're getting numb to this s*** now."
Bevan said an increasing number of tourists in recent years had added another layer of danger to State Highways 79 and 8 through South Canterbury.
"A lot of them have just got no skills. They can't even take a simple corner without crossing over the centre line of the road.
"They come over here, they jump in the car, and they scare the living crap out of everyone around them.
"Everyone makes mistakes on the road, I would be lying if I said I hadn't, but at least I understand when I have made a mistake.
"It makes me wonder how long I'm going to do this job. One of these days I'm going to come around a corner and find a dead body and I don't know how I'm going to react to that."
The only solution to it was to force a driving test on foreigners wanting to drive on New Zealand roads, no matter how difficult that would be to implement, Bevan said.
Fairlie senior constable Russell Halkett said about half a dozen cars had been reported driving dangerously on the state highways around Fairlie every day in the past week.
There were a lot of tourists around on the roads in Mackenzie and the majority of those being ticketed on it were from overseas, Halkett said.
The route from Geraldine to Fairlie, where Bevan's dash-cam got its footage, was a "typical New Zealand road" which was probably carrying more traffic than it ever had, he said.
"It doesn't have a lot of verges or places to pass and there's now a lot of buses going up and down it which can be frustrating for drivers stuck behind them and lead them to make mistakes."
New Zealand Transport Agency southern regional director Jim Harland said SH8 and SH79 might not have a lot of passing lanes, but it had significant straight stretches and was mostly flat.
"What I know about that road in particular is that it's not uncommon for it to have low volumes of traffic.
"Peak season, which we are in now, can put a lot of pressure on it, but it can be hard to present a business case for dramatic improvements."
The NZTA's visiting drivers project, which includes YouTube clips, in-flight videos and leaflets in a number of different languages as well as road and signage improvements, was helping foreign travellers in all parts of NZ, Harland said.
"Footage like this highlights poor driving all round. What we know is that a lot of the people that drift over the centre line are New Zealanders, not overseas drivers."