Driving home with your head out the window does not cut the mustard, police are telling drivers after two Wanaka incidents.
In one, a woman was heading home along Meadowstone Dr when the vehicle she was driving hit a parked car.
Police found she had not scraped the ice off her windscreen, and had been driving with her head out the window.
Wanaka sub-area commander Senior Sergeant Allan Grindell said she became confused by oncoming headlights, and hit the parked car.
There was no major damage from the crash at 11.30pm on Sunday.
In the weekly Wanaka police Crimeline release, Senior Constable Ian Henderson made reference to a man, in Wanaka for the ski season, driving in the same manner.
''Driving home with your head out the window does not cut the mustard,'' he said.
Snr Sgt Grindell said another motorist whose vision was completely obscured by frost, apart from a clear patch about the size of a computer screen, had been stopped.
''You only have to sit in your car for five minutes with your engine running and your fan on to defrost the window,'' he advised.
Sergeant Steve Aitken, of Dunedin police, said drivers taking to the road with frosted windscreens risked being fined $150.
''We would be loath to issue them, but driving with your head out the window, or not seeing where you are going, is a little bit dangerous given the conditions we have been having,'' Sgt Aitken said.
If drivers were to crash as a result of impaired visibility, they could face careless driving charges.
MetService meteorologist Rebekah LaBar said that while milder weather was predicted for the rest of the week, cold and calm nights would return for the weekend and frosts were likely next week.
Sgt Aitken recommended motorists fully defrost their windscreens and windows with water or clear them with an ice scraper.
Scrapers were available free from Dunedin Central police station, he said.
