Timaru woman Amy Hollamby makes a citizen's arrest on Christmas Day after witnessing a car's attempt to pass her vehicle and three others on a blind corner.

A Timaru woman said she had "never been so scared" when a tourist's driving near Tekapo on Christmas Day forced her to stop and reprimand the driver.

Amy Hollamby was stunned when a tourist vehicle overtook her family's car and three other vehicles on a blind corner on Christmas Day.

She said there were four cars travelling behind a slow moving bus on the outskirts of Tekapo when the vehicle behind the car she was driving with her family in it decided to overtake on yellow no passing lines around a blind corner.

"There was a bus driving slowly but not really slow, there were four cars behind it, us being the third, and the fourth car behind us decided to pull out and try to pass all four vehicles.

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"You just could not see what was coming, I looked in the rear view mirror and this car was trying to pass three cars and a bus on a blind corner.

"I thought 'oh my God', I've never been so scared, I thought 'this is it, we are going to see a major crash here'.

"It's a bit frightening . . . it was on yellow lines, that's no passing, obviously, every Kiwi knows this.

"I thought 'we are going to witness something pretty bad here'."

She said "thankfully" there were no vehicles coming towards them but "it's just ridiculous I was so angry".

Hollamby said she followed the vehicle as it pulled into the Tekapo township and got out of her car and made what she called a "citizen's arrest".

"The driver of another vehicle was also really angry and he told the driver they could not drive like that."

Hollamby's husband, Nigel, went over and alerted a police officer, she said.

"He didn't hesitate and took the keys off the driver straight away, I thought hallelujah.

"Hopefully this saved some poor policeman, fire or ambulance staff from scraping a body off the road."

Hollamby said the driver had made her way down from Christchurch on Christmas Day after arriving in New Zealand from China on Christmas Eve.

She was not sure what the driver did next but assumed the rental car company had been contacted to pick the car up.

She said the police are being really good and really proactive in warning people about road safety but they could not be everywhere.

"The really scary thing is that people drive like this and they still have to make their way through the pass [the Lindis Pass to Queenstown]."

Hollamby urged people to drive to the conditions this holiday season.

"It's half an hour longer who cares if you get there a little bit late; I want my family to get there in one piece driving carefully and safely.

People should not be scared to act if they saw horrific driving, she said.

Call *555 or stop and talk to the driver, she said.

Mid-South Canterbury area commander Inspector Dave Gaskin urged people to contact police if they saw dangerous driving on the roads.

While it was hard for police to cover all large geographical areas like in the Mackenzie district, it was a police job to ensure people were driving safely on the roads, he said.

"Ring *555, it will be answered by someone and we are notified and as soon as possible we will be there."

He said there was not a lot more police could do in this type of situation.

Police would usually contact the rental car company and cancel the car or if there was more than one eligible driver in the car then someone else could drive, he said.

He said tourists from all over the world paid a lot of money to visit our "beautiful" country and should be able to enjoy their stay but must do so safely.

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