Todays Paper ...

"Fatal crash car may have crossed line"

Taranaki Daily News 30 March 2006
"Initial investigations into Monday's fatal crash at Tongaporutu indicate the car driven by a German man may have been in the wrong lane.
Uhlenberg Haulage truck driver Gregory Bruce Bevins (50), of Eltham, died when his northbound truck and trailer unit and a southbound rental car collided.
The truck plunged 25 metres into the flooded Tongaporutu River.
Yesterday, Senior Constable Les Maddaford, of the Central Districts serious crash unit, said gouge marks revealed the impact between the Uhlenberg Haulage Mack truck and the Holden Astra car occurred at the base of the bank in the northbound lane.
"Somebody has to be on the wrong side of the road for a head-on collision to have occurred," he said.
The rental car, driven by a 35-year-old Hamilton-based German man heading south to work at Fonterra in Hawera, had ended up very close to the place where the collision occurred and facing the way it came, Mr Maddaford said.
"All avenues are being explored to ascertain why a collision has occurred against the fog line of the northbound lane."
Mechanical failure had not been eliminated, he said.
"There's been suggestions of the weather having an impact and the nature of the road having an impact. It could be the driver having a steering input or it could be mechanical failure.
"All those options have to be canvassed; now the jigsaw starts."
Mr Maddaford said he could not comment on suggestions the truck driver was attempting to avoid a full head-on collision.
"That's pure speculation."
But he did say the impact had been on the left-hand front of both vehicles.
Once the investigation was completed, the report would be handed over to the officer in charge, Constable Tony Brownrigg, who would decide whether a prosecution would follow.
"I would like to hope we would have some form of finality within about a fortnight," he said.
Senior Sergeant Geoff Ryan, of Waitara, said yesterday that the truck had been removed from the river late on Tuesday afternoon.
The road was now fully open after being down to one lane for most of the day."