Police question thinking behind Irish tourist's positioning of kayak on roof of his car

A senior police officer in New Zealand is astounded that a tourist drove along a busy road with a kayak tied to his roof crossways, endangering other traffic. The visitor from Ireland was stopped by a police patrol on State Highway 25A between Kopu and Hikuai on Sunday afternoon.
Rather than tying the kayak to the roof of his car lengthways, the tourist had attached the kayak crossways, so its ends were protruding over either side of the car.
District road policing manager Inspector Freda Grace said the man told police he had secured the kayak that way so it would not damage his car. "To make matters worse the officer was already on her way to a vehicle crash, and this driver's behavior could very easily have caused another - imagine if he had encountered a cyclist driving like this," she said.
Update: It turns out that the driver wasn't Irish, but Jonathan Waters from Auckland, and he disputes the version of events as described in the police report.