Police in Taranaki are pleading with tourists and keen photographers to stop treating a busy rural road as a photo studio, after a run of near-misses at a spot where people have been standing, and even lying, on the tarmac to line up the perfect shot of Mount Taranaki.
The trouble is centred on Kent Road, a 100kmh route near New Plymouth that offers one of the most striking roadside views of the maunga, the volcanic peak that dominates the region. Drivers have been pulling over at the vantage point despite clear no stopping signs, then stepping onto a carriageway where corners and rises give oncoming traffic very little warning. Police say the result has been a series of close calls that could easily have ended in a death.
Senior Sergeant Matt Prendergast said officers had fielded repeated reports from alarmed motorists. Speaking to 1News, he said, “We’ve had more than one report of people nearly being hit, and multiple near misses being reported.” His message to anyone tempted to stop was blunt. “It is not worth risking your life to update your social media account,” he said.
What makes the behaviour so risky is the road itself. Kent Road is not a slow tourist lane. It carries farm trucks, commuters and holiday traffic at open road speed, and the very feature that makes the view so good, an unobstructed line straight to the mountain, comes packaged with bends and hills that hide people from approaching drivers until the last moment. Officers have reported seeing visitors lying flat on the road surface to get a lower angle, and others stopping traffic altogether while they framed a picture.
Police have stepped up patrols along the stretch and have been moving people on when they find them parked where they should not be. They are candid, though, that enforcement alone will not fix the problem. Officers cannot sit on one length of rural road indefinitely, and the pull of the view is strong. The plea is really for a bit of common sense, and for visitors to remember that a photograph is never worth a serious crash.
The behaviour is a very modern headache. Mount Taranaki has long been one of the most photographed features in the country, its near perfect cone drawing comparisons with Japan’s Mount Fuji and turning up on postcards, calendars and film sets for decades. Social media has sharpened that appeal. A single well composed image of the snow capped peak, framed by farmland or mirrored in still water, can rack up thousands of likes, and the hunt for a shot that stands out has pushed some people into places they should not be. The mountain has not changed, but the pressure to capture it has.
Police are not asking people to stop admiring the maunga. They are asking them to do it from somewhere sensible. The region is dotted with safe, designated viewing areas and lookouts that give unobstructed views without forcing anyone onto a live traffic lane, and officers have encouraged visitors to seek those out rather than improvising on the roadside. A few minutes spent finding a proper spot, they argue, is a small price to pay for not becoming the reason a family loses someone on a winter drive.
The roadside warning comes during a stretch in which the mountain has been testing the people drawn to it. Earlier this month three trampers were rescued from the upper slopes after ice and snow left two of them seriously injured and a third trapped, a reminder that Taranaki can turn dangerous quickly in winter. The photo spot problem is a gentler hazard than a frozen summit, but the underlying point is the same. The mountain rewards respect and punishes carelessness, whether that carelessness happens at 2,500 metres or on a farm road at the bottom.
For locals, the frustration is familiar. Kent Road residents and regular users have watched cars brake suddenly and swing onto the verge, sometimes with children in tow, all for a picture. The near-misses reported to police were not close calls between careful drivers, but moments where a person on foot came within metres of a moving vehicle on a road built for speed, not for pedestrians. It only takes one driver coming around a bend a fraction too fast for a photo stop to become a tragedy.
The advice from police is simple and worth repeating as the school holidays keep traffic on Taranaki’s roads high. Obey the no stopping signs. Do not park on the road or the narrow verge. Do not stand, kneel or lie on the carriageway. And if the view is too good to pass up, find one of the many places built for exactly that purpose, where you can take all the photos you like without gambling with your life or someone else’s.
Mount Taranaki is not going anywhere. It has stood over the region for tens of thousands of years and will still be there tomorrow, next week and next season. There is no shot rare enough to justify chasing it into the path of a truck.
Have you seen risky photo stops on rural roads near you, or found a safe spot worth sharing? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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