High-speed chase after ’maniac’

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34132, 20 April 1976, Page 14

High-speed chase after ’maniac’

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND. ! Auckland City Council traffic officers are, {trying to trace the! driver of a Jeep who disappeared into the Riverhead State Forest late on Saturday after eluding patrols in a highspeed chase that began in Mount Albert. A spokesman for the Auckland City Traffic Department said today that the chase began about 10.50 p.m. when a traffic officer tried to stop the jeep in Asquith Avenue, near Fowlds Park. Apparently one of the rear lights of the vehicle was defective. The driver had done nothing wrong, said the spokesman, but the traffic officer just wanted to caution him about the light. But he would not pull over. “Suddenly,” said the spokesman, “the driver of the jeep turned into a bit of a maniac and away he went.” Four City Council cars and a motor-cycle traffic officer tried to stop the jeep unsuccessfully. During the pursuit the jeep leapt a 2ft concrete wail near Fowlds Park, travelled across a traffic island at the intersection of Carrington Road and Great North Road, and mowed down trees on the median strip of the northwestern motorway. The traffic officer riding the motor-cycle fell off his machine when he tried to follow the jeep down a dirt

road leading into the forest I near Huapai. Traffic officers believe it is only a matter of time before they find the driver of the 'jeep. Thev have the vehicle’s registration number, and a record of the type of jeep it is, and they know the year of manufacture.