Luck of the "Irish"

In what appears to be a case of good luck as opposed to good management, a driver stopped by Waikato Police on a rural Coromandel highway appears to have escaped a ticket for driving with his kayak lying sideways across his car's roof because of what appeared to be a foreign accent.

District Road Policing Manager, Inspector Freda Grace, said when an officer stopped the man on SH25 to speak to him about the danger his kayak was posing to other road users the man's accent made her assume he was Irish.

"Unfortunately we did not check his identity documents and as a result the driver was issued a warning, ordered to remove the kayak and told to head back into town to get suitable transport arranged for the kayak before continuing his journey.

"In this case the officer believed obtaining compliance from the motorist and preventing a crash was a more effective outcome than issuing the driver a fine and she believed she was enhancing foreign relations.

In this case while the man was a visitor to the region he was not Irish and as a result Waikato Police wish to offer an unreserved apology to any persons of Irish descent we may have offended."

Mrs Grace said that regardless of the driver's nationality, the main focus of the incident remained road safety and the risks posed by the driver to other road users should not be forgotten.

"After all, over the next couple of weeks the population of the Coromandel is expected to rise from 15,000 to over 130,000.

At any one time around 80 per cent of motorists on the region's roads will be visitors of one sought or another and we will all need to drive safe to reach the beach this summer."

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