Two people have been arrested after a high-speed pursuit involving swathes of police cars and an Eagle helicopter in west Auckland.
A police spokesperson told Newshub officers tried to stop the car on Triangle Rd, Massey on Friday afternoon, after being told a vehicle had been driving dangerously.
But the driver refused, fleeing from police at pace and travelling north on State Highway 16 for more than 30km, past Helensville.
Several other units were called into the pursuit.
Witnesses on social media described seeing the car driving on the wrong side of the road and through red lights, pursued by as many as 10 police cars and an Eagle helicopter.
Police told Newshub they weren't sure how many cars were involved in total, but confirmed that a helicopter was used in the chase.
Denise Lotze, a northwest Auckland resident, said she had to swerve off the road to avoid colliding with the car when she was driving between Waimauku and Huapai at about 1:45pm.
"There was a lot of traffic - it's a busy highway," she explained.
"I was driving along, there was a car a fair bit in front of me and quite a lot of space, then a guy who seemed to be crazy, driving between both lanes."
Lotze said the car was "weaving in and out of the cars at a million miles an hour", flanked by at least eight cop cars, two of which were unmarked.
She said she was able to drive onto an embankment to evade the driver but was "very lucky", as the stretch of road ahead of her was significantly more narrow and she wouldn't have been able to avoid a collision.
Eventually the vehicle was spiked on the Kaipara Coast Highway - 53km away from where the pursuit had began - and the occupants exited the vehicle and fled on foot.
They were soon apprehended and are now in custody.
Police didn't say what charges the driver would face.
