Highway Cops is back with ten new episodes for TVNZ 1 in 2023
New Zealand’s highways: 11,000 kilometres of some of the most spectacular and unforgiving roads on the planet. Over 1,000 dedicated road safety staff are tasked with keeping our highways and byways safe. It’s a job that brings its own perils… and rewards.
Tranquil Timaru gets a rowdy makeover during 4 and Rotary South Island Champs weekend, and not everyone is keeping the race cars on the track. There are modified messes, loud exhausts, and loud-mouth motorheads taking over the peaceful streets. Timaru isn’t the only place where car enthusiasts have run amok: There are illegally modified vehicles the length of the country, and road police try to educate drivers as to why their rad ride is more like a coffin on wheels.
The myth that international tourists cause the most mayhem on the roads is busted when Covid keeps them away, and homegrown holidaymakers drive in. The Kiwis are behaving badly and making the same driving mistakes, or worse, on the challenging roads of Aotearoa. There are the centre-line crossers, the dangerous overtakers, and those who are clueless as to the road rules, and this time they are all New Zealanders.
One family’s day is shattered when a mother takes a bend too fast in the wet and hits a truck. Their lives are saved thanks to the slow, sensible speed of the approaching truck driver. The distressed truckie has captured it all on his dashcam.
A carload of wannabe TV stars end up with a fistful of fines instead, when they drive by police not once, but twice, in efforts to gain attention. Another driver wants a fistful of face when he threatens to punch the man who crashed into him. There are always the angry drivers, but also plenty of intriguing ones like the friendly motoring nudist we meet in Gore.
It wouldn’t be Highway Cops without animals causing mayhem on the roads, and this season does not disappoint. Sheep, dogs, and turkeys take over the tarmac and give officers the run around, in scenes you’ll only see in Aoteaora.
All these highway adventures and encounters are set against the stunning backdrop of New Zealand’s green velvet hills, icing-sugar peaks, and sapphire skies. Come along for the ride with the New Zealand road police on Highway Cops.
