KEY POINTS:
Hawke's Bay police are looking for a truck driver and his passenger after a road rage incident that left a Napier man unconscious.
The man, 52, was beaten unconscious while trying to protect his son, who had been travelling in another vehicle, on the Napier-Taupo road on Thursday.
The son, 22, overtook a light truck which had been speeding up to try to stop him passing.
"I saw it from a distance and thought what a foolish thing to do, but the guy driving the truck didn't let up," the father told the Dominion Post.
"He kept tailgating my son real close. We're talking a metre or two. So at the next passing lane I overtook the truck and got in between. That cooled them down a bit."
The man said his son stopped at the Napier turnoff when the truck veered off the road and pulled up alongside.
Two thick-set men jumped out and tried to enter the van, he said.
"They couldn't get the driver's door open, but the guy on the passenger's side got in and took a swing at my son. I dived in on top of him, grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
"I told him to back down. He didn't back down and that's when I took a blindside hit from the other guy. Then they just pulverised me. I was hit on the head with something hard. Everything went white and I hit the deck."
The man regained consciousness as the pair drove off but had to spend the night in hospital for bad bruising and cuts to his head.
Detective Dean Young said police wanted to hear from anyone who witnessed the incident.
The attackers were described as a muscular Maori in his late 20s, 1.8m tall with dark curly hair and a dark-skinned, solidly built man, in his 30s or 40s, and unshaven with dark hair.
- NZPA
