An Uber driver carrying passengers was shocked to come across a woman trying to re-fuel her car on a busy Auckland motorway with her door hanging open into a 100km/h lane.
Gregory James Kent was taking customers to Auckland Airport around 9pm on Sunday when he came upon the car, which was parked on the right-hand shoulder of the motorway near Māngere Bridge.
Drivers experiencing breakdowns are meant to stop on the left-hand shoulder only.
The driver had left the front passenger door wide open, half blocking the right lane.
In dash camera video captured of the incident, Mr Kent can be heard telling her "you've got to shut the door - we're in 100 kilometres per hour!"
Mr Kent said the woman then asked him for help, and suggested that he should have left his taxi blocking the right-hand lane to make cars go around it.
In 2009, there was discussion among various agencies of introducing a bylaw in Auckland which would make it a specific offence to block a motorway due to running out of petrol, but it was never introduced.
At the time, police said it can take uo to 60 minutes to clear away a vehicle which has run out of fuel, and that it causes serious inconvenience and even danger for other motorists.
There used to be a bylaw making it an offence to run out of fuel where there is no shoulder - places like the Auckland Harbour Bridge - but it lapsed when the Harbour Bridge Authority was dissolved in the 80s.
The AA said in 2013 that Aucklanders are New Zealand's worst offenders when it comes to running out of fuel on motorways, and that about 6500 drivers are rescued across the country for this reason each year.
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