back to article Flock of sheep ends NZ high-speed car chase

A high-speed car chase in New Zealand's south island ended rather improbably when a carload of perps was brought to a halt by a flock of sheep. The police pursuit began at 8am last Friday when cops unsuccessfully attempted to pull a Honda Integra for speeding and having no numbers plates. During the subsequent race around …

  1. Knoydart
    Coat

    I'm surprised they didn't try a ewe turn when confronted by the 4 legged road flock

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Puntastic

      Judging by that quippery, it must be beer o'clock.

      1. Knoydart

        Re: Puntastic

        A little passed beer o'clock... 4am here in the land of the long white cloud

    2. bluefin333
      Coat

      Or did the Cops

      Ram it off the road?

    3. dotdavid

      Yeah when they realised their mistake they looked pretty sheepish.

    4. User McUser
      Coat

      Shear brilliance that. A great way to stop someone who's on the lamb.

      1. Mpeler
        Coat

        Sheepish?

        Mutt(on)ered one sheep to another, "Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes; there'll never be another ewe"...

  2. Dave 126 Silver badge

    NZ Rally

    I was watching a NZ stage of the World Rally Championship a few years back. The camera was mounted in the cab of a car that was absolutely hooning it down a mountain road. At that speed, there was a small speck of white in the distance, that within the blink of an eye was a flash of red across the windscreen.

    "And that was one of New Zealand's 30 million sheep" observed the commentator.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: NZ Rally

      hhmmm...

      There was 30 million sheep on the road, 30 million sheep on the road.

      Run one down, splat it around...

      and there was 29,999,999 sheep on the road.

      All together now...

      There was 29,999,999 million sheep on the road, 29,999,999 million sheep on the road...

      ...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: NZ Rally

      "And that was one of New Zealand's 30 million sheep" observed the commentator."

      Bullshit. An animal the size of a sheep hitting a vehicle at high speed will near destroy it. There would be no 'flash of red across the windscreen' - there would in fact be no windscreen - the carcass of said sheep would definitely end up in the car, no doubt seriously injuring the driver/co driver in the process.

      I'm from New Zealand, and I recall many reports of fatalities involving cars hitting livestock which had wandered into the road. its no joke.

      1. Ol'Peculier

        Re: NZ Rally

        It's on YouTube, with both an in-car shot and from a helicopter, and it didn't go through the windscreen.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlDWeAsaBg4

        Starts at about 4:50 in.

        1. runyod

          Re: NZ Rally

          Watching the video, looked like a glancing blow on the sheep. Reminds me of hitting a red-tail hawk at about 65mph. Windscreen flexed in briefly and I had feather prints for a few days. I told my 8-year old daughter about it that evening. Her response, "was the hawk OK?" I thought about turning it into a teaching moment about mass x velocity**2 mixed with the hollow bones of a bird, but (wisely) decided not to..

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: NZ Rally

          Thanks for the link! I used to love watching Sainz hooning around our gravel back roads.

          Fortunately for them the sheep _didn't_ hit the windscreen as suggested earlier. Lucky boys.

      2. Charles Manning

        Re: NZ Rally

        I too am from NZ You don't go rallying in a Daihatsu or your average family car which, indeed can be totalled by hitting a possum.

        Most of those rally cars have re-enforced front ends and underside to help strengthen them as well as make them less prone to rocks being flicked up etc. That's why people can often roll the damn things, tip them back on their wheels and keep going.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: NZ Rally

        > Bullshit. An animal the size of a sheep hitting a vehicle at high speed will near destroy it.

        Well, they lost the brakes(!), the radiator, and the intercooler after the sheep strike at 180-185 km/h¹. Don't know how close to your idea of "near destruction" that is², but certainly not a good day out.

        ¹ All the above according to the video posted below. I'm fluent in Spanish (and I loved the "¡Hostia! ¡La oveja!" bit).

        ² I assume you refer to the car, not the sheep.

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: NZ Rally

          It would appear that the first AC doesn't appreciate the difference between concave and convex structures, from a mechanical strength point of view.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: NZ Rally

            Or indeed the conservation of momentum.

  3. Ol'Peculier
    Pint

    Kiwi cops have second jobs being sheep farmers, that's diversity. Either that or he's fleecing the system.

  4. Florida1920
    Big Brother

    Sheep used as a roadblock?

    Don't let PETA hear about this!

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Sheep used as a roadblock?

      What? People for the Eating of Tasty Animals?

  5. Mike Moyle

    Did the driver exclaim...

    "We're flocked, mates!"?

  6. John Miles

    Could have been worse

    they could have run into the sheep from the New Zealand film "Black Sheep" - see IMDB link

  7. x 7

    I ran into a Herdwick once.

    Stopped the car, got out. The bloody thing looked at me, headbutted the car and ran off.

    Sheep was OK

    The car stank of sheep flavoured lanolin for months after

    1. BebopWeBop

      Herdwicks are toughies - with attitude. We lost a lot (maybe most at the time) up here in Cumbria during F&M* but they are back and meaner.

      *nothing to do with farmers moving them around fields to make numbers inspections in order to get their subsidies of course...

      1. Refugee from Windows
        Coat

        Herdwicks? Just come round a bend in the Dales and meet a flock of Swaledales. These are the ones that chase sheepdogs (in fact they gave mine some grief before she decided she'd had enough and put them in the corener of the field). The sheep here are just stubborn, or is it just plain thick?

        One flock of Herdwicks saw me (and dog) come over the hill and then decided to leg it - we must have been at least a quarter of a mile away. That's Cumbria for you.

        Belgian Blue cattle or Limousins would make the best roadblocks, you wouldn't want to hit one.

        Time for me coat, those cows won't milk themselves tonight.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "The bloody thing looked at me, [...]"

      A friend was driving fairly fast on a twisting road on the Isle of Skye at night. He said being dark made it easier as one would see any oncoming car's headlights. Highland cows don't have headlights - particularly when they are standing with their backs to the car's direction. Brakes were slammed on - and the card ever so slowly touched the cow's backside.

      The contour of the backside and legs fitted nicely into the shape of the car's radiator and bumper. The cow turned a horned head to see what had hit it and ambled off. The car's entire bonnet had been shifted back a quarter of an inch - an expensive repair for a Mazda rotary only a few weeks old.

  8. freddagg

    Bogans I bet

    These are your typical bogan types, hooning about in their second hand japanese imports minus tax, insurance and more dangerously no WOF.

    Don't forget your gumboots...

  9. Dwarf
    Joke

    Siren

    We're the sheep sounding their Sirens as they made the stop ?

    Baa-baa baa-baa

  10. Voland's right hand Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Improbably

    Are you sure you spelled that right?

    In NZ that should have been "probably" or "certainly" - based on sheep to inhabitants ratio.

  11. Simon Harris

    Bootnotes?

    Baa-t notes surely?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rice grinder + Lamb

    Hmmmm, curry!

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