Ex-MP witnesses Kaimai incident of truck overtaking in oncoming lane

A former MP who witnessed a truck overtaking on the wrong side of the road says it was a “super dangerous” move and the consequences could have been “terrible”.

J Swap - a contracting company based in Matamata – is investigating after one of its trucks was identified in dashcam footage of the State Highway 29 incident posted online.

It shows the truck on the wrong side of double yellow lines using an oncoming lane to pass both the vehicle with the dashcam and a car that was overtaking it in the passing lane.

In the 29-second video, the truck re-enters the left lane in front of both vehicles as the passing lane ends, and an oncoming vehicle rounds the corner ahead.

Long-time Tauranga resident Larry Baldock, a former MP and deputy mayor, saw the footage and told the Bay of Plenty Times he and his wife witnessed the incident.

He said they were driving from Auckland to Tauranga when they came up behind the vehicles involved about 2.15pm or 2.20pm on the Kaimai Range.

“It was a bit of a shock to see a truck go down the other side across double yellow lines.”

Baldock said near McLaren Falls there was “a small passing bay for slow traffic on the left”.

“I’ve encountered it in the past where people don’t realise how short it is and they go out to pass … and then find they’re almost running out of space if there’s two or three cars that all try to pass at the same time.”

Baldock said he saw the white car in the video move into the passing lane to pass the truck with the dashcam.

“The truck had pulled out to pass as well.

“We saw the truck go across the yellow line and go around the white car.”

Screenshot from footage of a truck overtaking a car on the Kaimai Range between Bay of Plenty and Waikato.

“What I think might have happened – and it’s not necessarily an excuse ... I think the white car might have been travelling a bit slow. And because the truck knows that that passing bay comes to an end very quickly, he suddenly was stuck with, ‘Shoot, if this white car doesn’t get a move on, I’m not going to have time to get past it before the lane ends’.

“So, he took the option of trying to pass the white car, which was super dangerous really.

Baldock said it was fortunate nothing was coming head-on in that lane.

“If there had been a truck coming up the hill and a car passing that, it would’ve been terrible.

“I would’ve thought the driver’s best option was to have braked and got in behind the truck again but he may have felt he was too far and he had no options.

“To be sort of open-minded and fair to the driver, maybe that’s what happened. But he should not have tried to pass in the first place, really.”

He planned to report his witness account to the police.

A police spokesman on Thursday morning said inquiries into Tuesday’s incident were still ongoing.

J Swap said on Wednesday it was investigating the incident in the dashcam footage. It was contacted for further comment today.

Larry Baldock pictured in 2023. Photo / Alex Cairns

Baldock is a former United Future MP who served terms on the Tauranga City Council until it was replaced with commissioners in 2020. He missed out on a seat in July’s election.

In his view, it was “so long overdue getting the Kaimai road fixed”.

“How many people have lost their lives on terrible accidents on the Kaimais because we have so many trucks?

“Thirty years ago, if we’d put a tunnel through with a toll on it, honestly, where else in the world do we haul all the freight to the biggest port in the country [Port of Tauranga] up and over a blinking hill.

“We’ve got to start getting serious about our infrastructure.”

In 2010, three routes for a road tunnel through the Kaimai Ranges were being investigated by the NZ Transport Agency, with prices ranging from $1.5 to $2 billion.

Among lives lost on the Kaimai range are Piripi Chase, 31, and Josephine Wilson, 28, who died after a December 2023 crash between a car and a petrol tanker.

Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.