Stolen tow truck at centre of two-hour police pursuit

A slow-speed police drama in Waikato ended after two hours today when a stolen tow truck ground to a halt after two of its tyres were shredded by police spikes.

The tow truck was stolen shortly after 5am from near Raglan by two teenagers who refused to stop for police.

During the chase the truck stopped and the teenage driver forced it into reverse in an attempt to ram a police car before taking off again.

Police said they had few options other than road spikes.

"What could we do, call out a tank?" said Inspector Lance Burdett from the police northern communications centre in Auckland.

He said police considered a rolling road block but could not use police cars against a truck.

A road block was also ruled out.

"It (the truck) would have gone straight through them."

Another option was jumping onto the truck when it stopped and tried to reverse into the police cars but that was also considered too dangerous.

"Because it was such a big truck it was too hard to get near. We would never do anything dangerous and that is why it was never done."

Pepper spray was also ruled out because it was dangerous.

"To do that was more dangerous than anything else. Then you have a guy with blurry eyes driving around.

"The most we could do was spikes."

When the spikes were laid they deflated the front left and rear left tyres but that did not immediately end the chase.

"The two tyres eventually wore off and it couldn't get traction. Eventually it just came to a stop.

"It was a slow pursuit. They never really got over 50km/h, although at one stage they got to 70km/h."

Police had two cars behind the truck and another patrol car in front to warn other traffic but they said the two youngsters in the truck were otherwise reasonably well behaved on the road.

"The young fellows were pretty reasonable about their driving."

During the two-hour chase the two teenagers swapped clothes and driving positions.

"It is the most bizarre pursuit I have ever been involved with," he said.

The two teenagers were in police custody and were due to face a variety of charges.

- NZPA