"Welcome to Smash Palace," says Te Anau Mobil garage owner Mark Dowling as he gestures to several dozen wrecked cars in a yard.

Some are rental cars, but the majority are uninsured second-hand cars bought by tourists.

Te Anau lies at the start of the Milford Rd, which stretches all the way to Milford Sound in the heart of the Fiordland National Park.

BARRY HARCOURT/FAIRFAX NZ English couple Tim Waimark and Vicky Album travelling by car on the road to Milford Sound. They're taking extra precautions after hearing of the recent fatal crashes.

Along with its reputation as being one of the most stunning drives in New Zealand, Milford Rd is becoming almost as well known for the high number of crashes involving overseas drivers.

READ MORE:

* Call to action for Southland's deadly Milford Road

* German tourists believed to have died in Te Anau crash

* German tourists killed in car crash remembered as polite, hard-working

* Some rental car drivers causing concern on Southland roads

Last week German backpackers Tristan Melzner and Lucas Leschok were killed when their car reportedly crossed the centre line and collided with a bus coming the other way, bursting into flames.

FAIRFAX NZ Milford Sound, the destination that draws thousands of visitors each year.

While fiery fatal crashes attract a lot of attention, Dowling, who has been towing cars for 20 years, says there are a lot more road accidents that go unreported.

"I towed a German teenager in last night, broken down not smashed, and he got his licence 10 days before he came here," he says.

The teenager's only real driving experience was limited to what he had done to get his licence back home. He then came here and managed to buy a car, even though he's clearly an 'inexperienced driver'.

BARRY HARCOURT/FAIRFAX NZ Mark and Wiebke Beamish and their children Thomas 2 and Henry 5 are touring New Zealand in a camper van.

Residents along the renowned route are becoming fed up with crashes involving distracted tourist drivers, and want to know what will it take to improve driver behaviour.

They say there's nothing wrong with the road itself. It's well maintained and while it has its challenges being an alpine road, the fault lies with those behind the wheel.

Traffic data revealed that 124,000 vehicles passed through the Homer tunnel in 2013. In 2016, that number increased to 164,000.

BARRY HARCOURT/FAIRFAX NZ Israelis Tau Nufar and partner Ron Tzur make a stop at the Mirror Lakes on the Milford Road.

Tourists generally travel on tour buses or rent vehicles in either Christchurch or Queenstown to make their way to the Sound as Te Anau is the closest town.

Te Anau Kiwi Holiday Park owner Anna Molloy says they try to encourage guests to go on busses instead of by car.

"We try and sell them a coach rather than a cruise by saying the driver can have a break as well."

BARRY HARCOURT/FAIRFAX NZ Flowers mark the spot where two young German tourists were killed on the road to Milford Sound.

What scares Molloy is that some of the tourists arrive in New Zealand and pick up a big campervan from Queenstown before going on the open road in a vehicle they have no experience in.

Molloy just returned from a meeting with the Holiday Accommodation Parks Association of New Zealand's South Island branch where she raised the issue of drivers because of the latest horrific accident.

She asked the association what they could do to better educate drivers among even though the issue was being investigated at a government level.

ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ A section of the Milford Rd climbing up towards the Homer Tunnel.

Molloy says there are for example opportunities to play educational videos about driving safety in the reception areas of hotels and other types of accommodation.

Stories of 'near misses' and bad driving behaviour are so common for many of those who work on the road or in Milford Sound that they often don't mention them.

The manager for Te Anau-based bus and coach company TrackNet, Nepia Tauri, 30, becomes concerned about his buses every time he hears the town's volunteer fire brigade siren go off.

BARRY HARCOURT/FAIRFAX NZ Te Anau Kiwi Holiday Park owner Anna Molloy.

But Tauri, who has worked for the company for eight years, doesn't believe every tourist driver is a bad driver.

It's the crazy itineraries they have, and because they underestimate the time it takes to get from point A to B, he says.

One such example was of an American group who he met that had been kayaking for 12 hours. They planned to drive to Milford Sound the next day and back to Christchurch to drop off their rental car before flying out.

BARRY HARCOURT/FAIRFAX NZ Looking towards Milford Sound from Lake Te Anau with the Neale Burn and Mt Anau.

According to Tauri this is a classic example of how people overexert themselves.

"They're in an unfamiliar place, driving an unfamiliar vehicle .... they're not used to the New Zealand conditions, the New Zealand roads."

However, there's no doubt the Fiordland National Park is a world class destination.

BARRY HARCOURT/FAIRFAX NZ TrackNet manager Nepia Tauri says not every tourist driver is a bad driver.

But Tauri questions if it has world class infrastructure.

"It really does need some investment that road. You think about the traffic volume that's on it now, the traffic volume is increasing."

Tauri also believes rental car companies have a role to play in keeping everyone safe on the roads.

BARRY HARCOURT/FAIRFAX NZ Te Anau Mobil garage owner Mark Dowling says he has never been to an accident where drivers were going too slow.

"We know a lot of the problem drivers come from people renting cars," said Tauri.

In recent years rental car companies have introduced a policy to cancel contracts when notified of poor driving. While this is a step in the right direction, is it enough?

In 2014, Indian tourist Niraj Bajaj was fined $500 and disqualified from driving for nine months after he was found to be driving so dangerously that he left a trail of motorists nearly crashing to get out of his path, near the Devil's Staircase in the Southern Lakes District.

Bajaj told police he was trying to catch his 3pm boat at Milford Sound.

New Zealand Transport Authority director of regional relations Jim Harland says changes have already been made to southern roads.

Yellow 'no passing' lines have been painted, centre line rumble strips were added and warning signs were installed.

Harland is also the chair of the Visiting Drivers Project, a collaborative effort between 14 different agencies to improve road safety for visiting drivers.

He says driver education messages are played on international Air New Zealand flights and when cars are rented.

"We know 69 per cent of visiting tourists will self drive on their trip," said Harland who believes our roads are 'different'.

Tourism New Zealand's corporate affairs general manager Deborah Gray says there is no single response that can resolve this issue, nor any single agency that can take the sole responsibility.

Communication only works if the message is received and understood. It doesn't replace experience nor does it get people to slow down.

It has been part of the Visiting Drivers Signature Programme since its inception in 2014.

Back in Te Anau, garage owner Dowling points to a wrecked Nissan that was pulled out of a ditch between Manapouri and Te Anau.

The German who was driving it was 'lucky' as the car landed upside down in the ditch with part of it underwater.

The crash happened on a perfectly straight piece of road.

He knows of tourists who attempt driving from Mt Cook to Milford and then onto Queenstown in a single night, more than 10 hours of driving.

Dowling doesn't believe that a park and ride system to travel to the Sound will work as this will most likely only deter people from coming.

He says no amount of intervention would help as the majority of the crashes are due to bad driving.

"I've never been to an accident where they were going too slow," he says.

THE TOURIST PERSPECTIVE

British tourist Mark Beamish was driving on the Milford Rd this week with his wife and two sons in a Maui Campervan they had rented.

Beamish says he was impressed with the condition of the roads in New Zealand on his travels throughout the country.

"I think the state of the roads is excellent. I'm absolutely amazed at the upkeep an maintenance of the roads, there's barely a pot hole."

He had not seen any near misses or accidents during his time in the country.

When driving on the road he said you have got to pay very good attention and stay very awake.

Tim Waymark and Vicky Album from the North of London say they were taking extra precautions after hearing of the recent fatal crash involving the young Germans.

"We are definitely driving extra carefully because of that accident, in case it was a particularly difficult stretch," Album said.

They had heard from New Zealand friends about the controversy surrounding visiting drivers, Album says.

They booked their rental car before they arrived and the company sent them information about driving in New Zealand.

"The email to confirm the booking had a govt video with it, which we did watch."

Driving in New Zealand did take a bit of getting used to, but it was easier for them because they drove on the same side of the road.

Israeli couple Tal Nufar and Ron Tzur arrived in New Zealand in early March, purchased a van and had planned on staying for three months.

Driving in New Zealand wasn't much of an issue for them because the had come from Australia where they had gotten used to driving on the other side of the road, Nufar says.

"It was difficult to get used to at first but not bad."

During their travels, Nufar say they had seen some tourists just stop in the middle of the road to take photo.

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