Mary Williams travelled the risky road twice — with Otago Daily Times photographers and then the police.
While steadily driving the 118km from Te Anau to Milford Sound, at the back of a queue of other cars and campervans all making sensible progress, the Otago Daily Times vehicle was overtaken by a brightly-painted Wicked Campers campervan.
The Wicked driver presumably thought he had wicked driving skills.
He queue-hopped twice more, despite bends and brows. On the third time, a vehicle unsurprisingly came the other way. He nipped back into the left lane in time — this time.
A few corners ahead, we caught up with him, standing leisurely on rocks at the side of the Hollyford River, where he and his partner had parked to admire the view.
Wicked Campers aims its rentals at the budget market — in this case, two young Australians from Sydney.
Joel Anderson thought his driving was "all good" and "safe". It was a "normal" drive, for him.
"I’m used to driving similar roads," he said.
He had driven "all the way to the west coast of Australia".
"Maybe other drivers are not so used to it," he said.
It was an interesting remark. The "other drivers" he had overtaken were driving at speeds appropriate for the road, which was narrow, bendy and with restricted visibility.
The Milford Opportunities Project — charged with proposing solutions to ease congestion and improve the road’s safety and environmental impact — says the road to Milford is third-worst, for personal risk, of any public road in New Zealand.
The project’s "master plan" says the road is "considered challenging for international and inexperienced domestic drivers".
It has also undertaken a feasibility study for an off-road cycle trail into the park.
At Milford Sound, we chatted to another Wicked Campers driver.
Alex Peers, 56, of London, said he did not think he had been given any safety advice by Wicked Campers, but mused that maybe he was "not in the demographic" that raised concerns.
He had been warned about the road by locals the night before and had seen "one guy overtaking three cars on a bend".
"Everyone thinks they are the best driver, right?"
We later tried to contact Wicked Campers for comment.
They hung up on the ODT — repeatedly — after providing an email address that bounced.
Te Anau road policing supervisor Sergeant Dave Leach, who leads a four-strong road policing team from Te Anau, said unsafe passing was the biggest risk on the road, and people should ring *555 to report unsafe driving — or 111 if there was present danger.
"To deliver a warning, all we need is a registration," he said. If several complaints were received, enforcement could be escalated.
Sgt Leach worried drivers might only call about the very worst behaviours, because bad driving was so common.
Drivers should call in all bad behaviour on all rural roads — there was dangerous driving across the South, he said.
Reporting on bad driving is a particularly tough call on the Milford Road, however — it has limited cellphone coverage.
New Zealand’s Rental Vehicle Association (RVA) asks its members to sign up to a code of practice that requires them to educate rental drivers about safety and consider cancelling a hire contract if police flag a rental driver’s poor driving behaviour.
Wicked Campers is not a member of the RVA.
RVA chief executive Ben McFadgen said he was "disappointed" that despite the code, "some drivers are still driving according to how they feel they need to drive and not to the road conditions".
"We have to keep reinforcing the safety message — again and again and again."
Technology was the solution.
Leading operators were increasingly using in-vehicle electronics to monitor driver behaviour.
The ODT joined Sgt Leach for a morning patrol of the Milford Road between Te Anau and the Eglinton Valley in an unmarked police car, stopping drivers for a range of behaviours, including passing without visibility, speeding and holding a cellphone up to snap photos.
Most of the drivers he stopped — but not all — were international visitors.
About eight in ten Milford Sound visitors are from abroad.
In the front of a rental campervan were three Dutch people.
Perched in the middle, with no head restraint and only an old-fashioned lap belt, was a young woman.
"We weren’t told by the rental company not to sit here, so we presumed it was safe," she said, immediately moving to a rear seat when warned of the heightened risk of internal injuries and a broken neck.
After Sgt Leach walked back to his car to do paperwork, the driver directed a strange question to the ODT: "Help me understand — if I am stuck behind a cyclist but I cannot see ahead, should I overtake if there is a queue of traffic behind me?"
It was an easy question to answer on behalf of the police: "No."
Back in the car, Sgt Leach guffawed with frustration, not humour.
"Every overtaking incident I enforce could easily be a fatality or a serious injury. And as the road gets busier and busier, the chance gets greater."
This week, in a crash that did not involve overtaking, a motorcyclist died and two other motorcyclists were injured.
The less crash protection, the greater the risk in a crash.
Cyclists also have no crash protection — and no segregated route to Milford Sound.
"The road would be incredible without traffic," said Kate Whiting, of Wellington, cycling from Marlborough Sounds to Milford Sound with her wife Anna Whiting.
When asked about their safety on the road, Kate said there were "nutter" drivers.
It was the worst road they had experienced — about 1 in 20 drivers were poor.
They had good things to say about local tour operator Trips & Tramps, which operates small coaches.
"We were thinking of giving them a Trip Advisor review for driving carefully and giving us space."
People are also on foot there. There were tourists wandering randomly across the road at Monkey Creek, a popular stopping place for independent day trippers and coaches.
Dr Catherine Crofts, of Auckland, was taking a driving break. She was picking up her husband and a friend who were on an off-track hike up Mitre Peak. She had "seen so much overtaking".
"People shouldn’t be impatient. Campervans are doing the best they can.
"Drivers are overtaking because they think they can squeeze through. I’ve seen four near misses in five trips."
"It would be a good idea to carry a personal locator beacon, but my husband’s got it."
Parking at Milford Sound was "next to impossible" and she would "love" to see restrictions on the use of it by day trippers to Milford Sound, "as long as an easy permit is available" for people wanting to tramp or hunt.
There are also conservationists hard at work by the road.
Ecologist Sina Sibler was found striding off with two colleagues to undertake field research on bats.
"I’m here all summer and see constant, shocking driver behaviours. It is our biggest hazard — not being in the bush."
When asked to describe what she saw, Ms Sibler answered: "Overtaking, overtaking and overtaking."
Lee McRay, who owns the coffee van Coffee Cat, was parked at Mirror Lakes.
"I’m pretty sure overtaking drivers think the yellow lines mean go," she said.
"I thought I had time, but appreciate it was tight", one driver said.
There was a general lack of understanding among caught, overtaking drivers of the need for significant clear road ahead — to leave space for vehicles that might come the other way.
The combined velocity of both vehicles is the reason why head-on collisions are so deadly.
A safe place to overtake was when a driver could be absolutely assured there was a "soccer field length ahead after you have completed the manoeuvre," Sgt Leach advised.
On a road like this, why do it?
The traffic was always moving at a steady pace anyway. It seemed inevitable when some drivers did, however.
A driver, two cars ahead of Sgt Leach, went for it, before a bend. The car immediately in front of us then pulled out too — only deciding against it, and pulling back in, when they heard Sgt Leach’s siren.
Drivers caught by Sgt Leach got a penalty notice for passing without visibility.
Caught drivers were on holiday, in shock at being stopped, apologetic, and did not appear to be in a rush.
They were not late for their cruise boats on Milford Sound — they were simply overtaking because they felt they could.
A driver in his 60s had been planning to stop just around the corner, for a leisurely forest walk with his wife.
"I want to apologise for my behaviour," he said. His hands shook in shock as he handed over his licence.
Crashes happen in split seconds too.
A likely-tired New Zealand driver, who had nearly made it back to Te Anau after an early cruise in Milford Sound with her children, was caught swerving repeatedly on to the verge. When stopped, she admitted to "looking down for something in the car, can’t remember what".
"Imagine if you had swerved into the middle, and something was coming," Sgt Leach said.
"There is no room for mistakes. A moment’s inattention can bite."
When asked how to drive the road safely, he put it succinctly: "Follow a bus."
Professional bus drivers who drive the road daily are typically experienced, careful and vocal about the risks posed by the day trippers. They see dangerous behaviours every day — and crashes.
At Mirror Lakes, a popular pull-over beauty spot, many of the bus drivers stop and share their horror stories.
Fiordland Tours driver Karlyn Connolly, on his way into Milford, said he had seen four dangerous overtaking manoeuvres already that day.
"It’s normal."
Back in Te Anau at the end of the day, Real NZ coaches were parked up for a toilet break before the final haul back to Queenstown. Their drivers looked like it had been a long day and were ready for home.
Real NZ driver Craig Hiestand said there were drivers on the road who were "absolutely f...... dangerous". Overtaking drivers were commonplace.
"They are rolling the dice."
