Footage of tourist drivers crossing centre line has experts worried

Videos emerging of poor driving by tourists have again brought up the topic of what to do about it.

Police say even though numbers of tourists in New Zealand are significantly increasing, there has not been an increase on road crashes involving visiting drivers.

But citizen-captured videos from the back roads of New Zealand have people worried. Drivers have been captured doing unsafe and dangerous moves, in which it's almost a miracle no one is killed.

One such video filmed this week shows a Russian driver constantly over the centre line. He later told police he found it difficult to stay on the left side of the road.

More and more videos are coming to light that show extremely bad driving from tourists.

Experts say there are simple things that should be done right now.

"First of all there should be a 24-hour stand-down on anyone that's been on a long flight [before they] can get behind the wheel of a vehicle," says motoring expert Clive Matthew-Wilson.

He says there's another easy solution.

"There needs to be a simple 60-second computerised check following a dot down a screen to test whether in fact they are alert or not."

But the police say we can't solely blame foreign drivers. They say despite an increase in tourism there is no increase in visiting drivers crashing, and in 2016 overseas licence holders were responsible for just 4 percent of fatality and injury-causing car crashes.

"The argument that because there are dodgy drivers in New Zealand we should excuse tourists driving on the wrong side of the road is just complete nonsense," says Mr Matthew-Wilson.

A visual journalist who lives in Nelson shot the footage of the Russian driver on Friday.

"I've covered many, many fatal and injury road crashes, and the guy we were following looked like he had the potential to produce another one," says Martin de Ruyter from the Nelson Mail.

Mr De Ruyter says it often comes down to complacency on the roads. As a result of all he has seen, he says he suffers from PTSD.

"The road crashes in particular start to play like a bad movie in your head."

Mr Matthew-Wilson says if the Government makes one big change, the road toll in this country will half in just a few years.

"The cheapest way of improving the road toll is to put roadside fencing and median barriers in. That protects everybody at a very, very low cost."

He has hopes the new Government will tackle the road toll head on.

Newshub.