Crashes of one sort or another seem to make the news on a weekly, if not daily, basis – but it's not often we find ourselves caught up in the aftermath of one.

That's the situation Tauranga man Ross Steele found himself in on Monday night, when he drove into the scene of an accident in Te Poi.

He says he was coming back to Tauranga at around 5pm when he came across the crash at the intersection of State Highway 29 and Te Poi Road.

'I looked ahead and saw a white ute in a ditch with stuff strewn right across the road. There were eight or so people gathered around it, and three very stunned ladies in the silver car in the middle of the road. They had clearly gone through the stop sign coming from Okoroire towards Morrinsville.”

With traffic coming from four directions, Ross says he used some of the skills he's picked up from marshalling at marathons to direct traffic, until police and other emergency services arrived around five minutes later.

'I was there for around 45 minutes. After that I went to the Te Poi pub to have a drink and a steak to settle my nerves.”

He says the fact the area is a 70km zone probably helped to ensure there were no serious injuries.

'I went down to where the ute was and said, ‘Shit this guy was lucky to get out in one piece.' And a guy standing there said that was him – he was cool as cucumber, considering what he had just been through.”