A motorist has cheated death after beer bottles were dropped from a highway overbridge, smashing a windscreen where the stunned driver was sitting.
Auckland man Paul Lee said he was travelling from Tauranga to Auckland on the new toll road early Sunday morning with two friends after a fishing trip when he was bombarded by a missile thrown at his car.
He said there was an almighty crash as glass objects - that appeared to be beer bottles - disintegrated just centimetres from his face as he approached the Parton Rd overbridge around 1.20am.
The shocked Aucklander said his windscreen was left shattered with bits of green glass embedded in the safety glass.
A photo of his badly-fractured windscreen shows the distinct circular imprint of the base of a beer bottle. The greatest damage is on the driver's side at head height.