It was road rage, no mistake, says horrified witness

Emergency service personnel and a helper attend to the hit-and-run victim on Mt Eden Road. Photo / Brett Phibbs

A horrified witness has spoken of how an enraged driver put his foot down and "just went for it" in a road-rage incident that left a man with two smashed legs.

In the first full account of Wednesday morning's hit-and-run in inner Auckland, the witness described the moments before an Asian man was knocked down and dragged several metres along Mt Eden Rd.

The victim - who is likely to need a series of operations - was last night stable in Auckland City Hospital.

"If you ask me, [the driver] cannot say 'it was a mistake' or 'my foot slipped off the accelerator'. He just went for it and [the victim] actually went under the wheels ... No after-thought, not slowly, nothing ... He just went, at speed," said the witness, who did not want to be named.

He said he was at work when he heard a lot of shouting about 9.40am.

He went outside and saw a middle-aged man with "salt and pepper" hair get out of a dark-coloured Saab, which was parked in the carpark next to Galbraith's Alehouse on Mt Eden Rd.

The Asian driver of a dark Mercedes had stopped in the middle of the street.

"I don't know why," the witness said. "Maybe he didn't give way to the guy coming out of the carpark or something silly like that."

He said the Saab driver pulled the Mercedes driver's door open and was shouting at the man inside.

"Then he slammed the door shut on him and walked back to his car."

The Mercedes driver then moved his vehicle from the middle of the road and parked. He strode over to the Saab, smacked the bonnet and began moving around to the driver's door.

The witness watched in horror as the Saab driver appeared to slam his foot down on the accelerator to drive straight into him.

"There was no way that man can say 'I didn't mean to'," he said.

The Asian man was dragged under the car for two or three metres and was left lying on the road screaming, his left leg at an unnatural angle.

The Saab driver, who had a middle-aged, dark-haired female with him, sped off.

"I could hear the [Mercedes] guy yelling and he was in pain, so I ran over to him and I assisted him as much as I could until the ambulance came," the witness said.

The injured man spoke limited English but the witness tried to keep him talking, to take his mind off the pain.

"I was holding his leg up and I could see his leg was twisted a bit and he couldn't put it down so I put it up to avoid the blood rushing to the spot."

Shortly after, paramedics arrived and took the victim away.

The witness later spoke to the injured man's partner, who had returned to get his car. "She said he was in hospital and was undergoing surgery, one of a long series of surgeries, I think," he said. "She said he had three breaks in his legs, one at the knee, two in the other leg, a ruptured blood vessel. All sorts of things."

Resident Jamie Ruscoe, who saw the aftermath of the crash, said police told him that the Saab driver had phoned to confess the hit-and-run.

"He refused to come back to the scene to talk to them, but he told them who he was and where he lived."

Police spokeswoman Noreen Hegarty confirmed staff had spoken to the driver but said no charges had been laid. Police had also spoken to the injured man briefly in hospital, and were talking to witnesses as part of an "ongoing inquiry".

Canterbury University criminologist Greg Newbold said road rage often came down to big-city stress.

"Auckland is a place with a huge traffic problem and people get stressed out and if you get someone stressed out at the wrong time, they can do something totally out of character.

"It's typical of big cities. It's not so typical of small towns, but it does happen everywhere."

Dr Newbold said "you don't know what sort of morning that bloke had" and Auckland was a "pretty aggressive sort of a city" compared to the likes of Christchurch.

PREVIOUS ROAD-RAGE CASES
* AUGUST 2005: Auckland man Toma-Akino Lauaki attacks truck driver Barry Fletcher with a claw hammer - leaving him with a broken leg, ankle and wrist, and bruising to his arm and spine - after Mr Fletcher cuts him off. Lauaki is ultimately given three and a half years in prison.

* APRIL 2009: Bio O'Brien punches 78-year-old grandfather Jasmatbhai Pancha Patel after a minor vehicle collision in Mt Albert. Mr Patel dies in hospital the next day, and O'Brien, 28, is sentenced to three years in prison for manslaughter.

* FEBRUARY 2010: A truck driver is smacked through his cab window by two laughing attackers after he cut them off on the Southern Motorway.

TRIGGERS
* Anger-provoking situations.
* Police presence.
* Traffic obstructions.
* Illegal driving.
* Hostile gestures.
* Discourteous driving.

AVOID TROUBLE
* Do not make provocative gestures.
* Acknowledge if you are in the wrong.
* Do not tailgate.
* Co-operate with other road users.
* Be courteous to other motorists.

Source: Road rage researcher and criminologist formerly of Massey University Dr Mark Sullman's findings in 2003 study of driving anger among New Zealanders