Four people were arrested in Clyde last week after a bus stolen from Dunedin got stuck in roadworks.
Alexandra Police Senior Constable Graham Perkins said after seeing a post on Facebook, members of the public in Roxburgh contacted police, when the small Mitsubishi Rosa travelled through the town.
Police units formulated a plan to stop the bus and set up road spikes at both the Clyde bridge and State Highway 8.
Snr Const Perkins said the driver turned onto Blyth Street where one police unit initiated a vehicle stop and blocked the road.
The 40-year-old male driver was arrested and charged with unlawfully taking a vehicle, and two passengers – a 42-year-old female and 38-year-old male – were also charged with unlawfully getting into a vehicle.
“Both passengers had a conflicting version of events,” he said.
The third passenger, a 41-year-old male was arrested and released without charge after cooperating with police, and proving he had no knowledge of the plan to steal the vehicle.
A meth pipe and point bags were also seized from the vehicle and the three offenders will appear in the Alexandra District Court next month.
In the same week, traffic in Clyde came to a standstill one morning after batteries from a set of traffic lights were stolen.
Aspiring Highways reported 12 batteries had been taken from the portable lights on Sunderland Street in Clyde, after the battery leads were cut to access them.
“Four traffic signals were connected together and created a bit of a bottleneck in the morning due to sequence of phase being disrupted.”
