Truck driver Bevan drives the Christchurch to Cromwell route every week from Monday to Friday and has captured many near misses on his dash-cam.

A man who drives a 44-tonne truck and trailer through the Mackenzie District every weekday says driver behaviour on State Highway 8 is the worst in New Zealand.

Bevan, who did not want his last name or the company he drives for published, has used footage captured on the dash-cam of his truck to catalogue years of close calls on the Cromwell to Christchurch route.

After sharing it on Facebook he decided to post it on his YouTube page Outdoors with Rev.

One of Bevan's videos shows a close call when a driver pulls out of a viewing point at Lake Pukaki onto the right-hand side of road, into the path of his truck.

Another shows a car, which Bevan is certain was driven by an overseas tourist, bewilderingly stopping without indication in front of him while going through Tekapo's town centre.

In both cases, Bevan barely stops in time but he is convinced he and the offending car drivers will not be so lucky every time.

"I'm in an eight-wheeler truck with an eight-wheeler trailer and I can't stop very fast. I will literally mow you down."

Bevan said he had never seen people get as disorientated in a small town as they did when they drove into Tekapo.

But it was not just tourists that made what was "a pretty standard bit of road" into a dangerous one, Bevan said.

"Some of the Kiwi drivers are just as bad. They think they know the road and they think they can drive so they take their chances.

"All the passing in traffic is definitely the biggest problem. A lot of it is just crazy. I'm in a 20-metre long unit and people think they can go round me on blind corners."

Bevan said there was always a lot of discussions between fellow truck drivers about how to make State Highway 8 safer but simple solutions were hard.

"Us drivers always talk about what we can do. We pretty much save the world over the phone with our yarns but to be honest I don't really know what can be done.

"People just need to known that trucks can't stop as fast as you, as well as all the usual safety messages that everyone ignores."

Acting road policing national manager Inspector Pete McKennie said police were focused on having a visible presence on certain key tourist routes.

McKennie said the percentage of tourists who had difficulties was "very low" and when they did crash it was normally for the same reasons as New Zealand drivers.

"If anyone witnesses unsafe driving behaviour they should contact police."

The NZ Transport Agency has introduced the Visiting Driver Project focusing on improving roads and driver behaviour in Otago, Southland and the West Coast where international visitors make up a significantly large proportion of the traffic in summer.

Mackenzie District is not included in the project.