Dash cam footage has revealed a terrifying moment for a travelling Gisborne family when a van crossed the centre line at high speed on a major State Highway.
Mātāwai residents Sophie Ostern, 25, and Brodie Vermeulen, 27, were driving home from work at around 4.30pm on Monday on State Highway 2 between Gisborne and Ōpōtiki when the terrifying near miss occurred.
Ostern was driving while Vermeulen was asleep in the passenger seat with their children, aged two and five, asleep in the back.
The family's dash cam footage provided to Newshub shows Ostern's vehicle approaching a corner when suddenly a white van comes shooting around the bend at high speed.
The van crosses the centre line before pulling back into its lane in the nick of time, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision.
Ostern told NZ Herald she was happy there was no traffic behind her at the time.
"Had a car or a truck even been behind me, it could've ended extremely differently ... especially a truck, it would have just taken us out," Ostern said.
Vermeulen said Ostern "slamming on the brakes" woke him up.
"I woke up being greeted to a van like pretty much directly in front of me.
"It's like a holy s*** moment."
Vermeulen said they pulled over to collect themselves but the van was "long gone".
"If it wasn't for my partner slamming on the brakes and going off to the left a little bit, it would've been a crash. I have no doubt about it," Vermeulen said.
The video of the near miss was played on AM on Wednesday, which horrified the hosts.
"A really close call, a very scary close call," co-host Ryan Bridge said, while fellow co-host Melissa Chan-Green added, "Look how fast that van is travelling, oh my goodness".
Bridge then recalled a similar experience he had earlier this year, which terrified him.
"There is nothing more frightening when there is a car across the centre line and it's coming towards you," he said.
"It happened to me last summer. My partner and I were driving in the Far North and it happened. We had to pull over, we were shaken up because you're moments from death, aren't you."
Chan-Green also called on drivers to stop cutting corners.
"Even just people on the windy roads, I'm thinking around the Coromandel but there are lots of places around New Zealand, and people kind of smooth out the corners and they come around, I mean, not cool."
AM Early fill-in host Oriini Kaipara had a blunt message to drivers, "don't do that and slow down".
Watch the moment above.
