Senior Constable Chris Blackford said Christchurch coroner Richard McElrea's inquiries were primarily centred on the death of two motorcyclists in the Lindis Pass in November last year.
The accident was caused by a 20-year-old Chinese tourist driving a rental car who drifted on to gravel then lost control of the vehicle as a group of motorcyclists were coming the other way on the same stretch of road.
In 2001, an 18-year-old Chinese man studying at Lincoln High School died when he lost control of his vehicle and Mr McElrea has sent a copy of the inquest into the death he wrote and released in 2002 to Snr Const Blackford.
The report found the student had a counterfeit Chinese licence, and was in breach of his New Zealand learner's licence conditions.
Snr Const Blackford said police national headquarters had notified the New Zealand Transport Agency about the use of overseas driver's licences.
''The advice from New Zealand police headquarters was that the New Zealand Government was a signatory to some international conventions on road traffic which were signed many years ago.''
These conventions allowed visitors to New Zealand to drive on their home-country licence for up to a year and for New Zealanders to have the same allowances in several overseas destinations.
''I think it's fairly safe to assume that all those years ago the number of overseas drivers ...
coming to New Zealand would not reasonably have been foreseen,'' Snr Const Blackford said.
''Unfortunately, in this day and age, almost everything made or produced seems to be able to be copied in very sophisticated ways, as was ... the case in the fatality in 2001 with the young Chinese driver - he was found to be driving on a fake driver's licence ... what was clearly evident was the lack of experience of the Chinese driver involved which has been attributed to the deaths of two New Zealanders.''
He said Mr McElrea had issued instructions for further inquiries to be made in relation to ''the legal aspects of the accrediting of overseas persons with New Zealand driver's licences''.
Calls to the NZTA by the Otago Daily Times were not returned.
