Wild moment a skateboarding tradie hitches a ride on the back of a ute to beat peak hour traffic - but his larrikin antics spark a furious debate online
A daredevil tradie has sparked debate on social media by hitching a ride off the back of a speeding ute on his skateboard.
The tradie scored a free ride along Punt Road through busy traffic in central Melbourne, with his trip captured on the ute's dash cam.
He was skating along the pavement when he spotted a ute stopped at lights on Punt Road in central Melbourne and opted to save time by holding onto the ute's tray while on his board.
The skating tradie seizes his chance to hitch a ride along Melbourne's busy Punt Road by hitching a lift on the back of a ute
He got up to 38km and hour and handled it like a pro, even pulling a couple of hero poses along the way
The dash cam footage showed the unconcerned tradie skater calmly negotiating speeds of up to 38km an hour on his board, before he jumped off when traffic slowed to walking pace.
He turned and flashed a 'hang loose' thanks to the amused driver, who was laughing throughout the journey.
Dash Cam Owners Australia posted the video to its Twitter and Facebook page, where the clip went viral and drew a range of responses.
It clocked up around 4,000 reactions and more than 700 comments in just a few hours.
Many praised the ute driver for keeping his hitchhiker safe by giving him a smooth ride.
Thrillseekers and ex-skaters also commented in awe of the tradie's fearlessness - laughing off some of the serious responses to his antics as 'the fun police'.
The scene reminded a few Facebook users of Michael J Fox as Marty McFly doing the same thing in an iconic scene from Back to the Future.
When the traffic slowed to a walking pace, the skater tradie jumped off and flashed a 'hang loose' thank you to the driver
But plenty were scared by the apparent risk of riding unprotected through busy traffic.
One commenter, who claimed to have worked in a hospital emergency reckoned it was an unacceptable risk, and he'd seen results of the same behaviour go badly wrong.
'I work in emergency, I've seen some pretty nasty injuries on a teenager doing this,' he wrote.
'It was a fully loaded ute, and the patient fell under the back wheels.'