Bus backs 300m on blind corner of 100km/h state highway near Whanganui

A bus backing several hundred metres down a busy state highway on a blind bend is the second lot of terrible driving caught on camera at that intersection this month.

Video captured by security cameras outside the Double S Motordrome garage on State Highway 3 east of Whanganui shows a bus driving past the turn-off to Kai Iwi, stopping, then reversing back to the intersection on a 100km/h road.

The bus, which garage owner Ray Stevens said looked to be converted to a motorhome, allegedly had no reverse lights as it backed about 300m to get to the turn-off.

The incident late Thursday morning comes just a few weeks after Stevens caught footage of a dramatic near miss at the same intersection.

"It just seems to be a magnet for idiots," Stevens said. "They just pick this corner. If you want to be an idiot, come to this corner."

A witness to the bus' unexpected backing manoeuvre got "the fright of her life" when she saw it heading the wrong way down the lane, Stevens said.

The driver could have waited and performed a u-turn, he said.

"When these guys are on the road, I wonder if they're bad judges, I don't know.

"He was taking up part of the lane, he couldn't have been aware of anything that was around him.

"I was just blown away. How do we plan for idiots?"

The earlier near-miss Stevens caught on camera a few weeks ago happened when a car pulled out at the intersection, causing an oncoming vehicle to swerve around it at high speed.

Stevens said he sees near-misses at the intersection every 7-10 days, and there have been two crashes there in the past year.

However he has never seen a vehicle back such a distance along a main highway before.