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A teenager clocked doing 178km/h through a notoriously dangerous intersection told police he was simply "blowing off steam".
Stunned officers say there is no excuse for the 19-year-old's irresponsible driving, especially as he had two passengers.
"It was absolutely mad to drive like that," said Senior Sergeant Andrew Berry, tactical co-ordinator for Counties Manukau East police.
Mr Berry said a constable in a patrol car was driving north along Te Irirangi Drive on Sunday night when his radar picked up the teenager's Japanese import coming through the Ormiston Rd intersection.
"He initially thought the radar gave him a mistaken reading because he couldn't see the car. Then he saw it coming, locked it at 178 and it came through the intersection so quick that he couldn't even get a registration."
The officer found the car stopped at the next traffic lights, where the driver explained travelling at more than twice the 80km/h limit by saying he was blowing off steam.
Mr Berry said: "There are some of our most dangerous intersections along Te Irirangi Drive, Ormiston being one of them, and he blows through that intersection so fast that the first thing the officer knew that the car was coming was when the radar picked him up at that speed."
If the car had collided with another vehicle, the combined impact speed would have been about 250km/h, which would have been "certainly fatal to the three occupants of the offending vehicle plus anybody they collided with".
The teenager was charged with driving at a dangerous speed and operating a vehicle recklessly, and his car was confiscated.
