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."

A sad day by the river.

Click picture for bigger version

The crash we attended yesterday is front page news in the Taranaki Daily News.(probably short term link)

The Truck was travelling north towards the camera, the car south away from the camera.

The loaded truck went over the bank in the left foreground.



The car is very close to the original impact point, but has been spun around, the truck has climbed over the car, running over the passengers side.


The front suspension on the truck, always a trucks most vulnerable point in an accident, has collapsed and the truck continued across the corner and over the bank.


Unbelievably the car driver survived with "minor injuries"


Two 50 tonne cranes are used to recover the truck.
The "Bathtub" trailer unit first.


It is a job that requires skill and orchestration


Then the truck tractor unit.


This all takes time, and traffic builds up. We have to send a truck with signs and flashers out quite some distance to warn unsuspecting drivers hurtling up to the tail of the queue.


Something that is not often seen by the public, is a blessing done at the scene when there has been a fatality.


The transporter & cranes leave, and as the traffic finally flows, we clean up.

The next day we read the local paper

In my time I have been a reporter, truck driver & road worker, but not a crash investigator, though I have seen many many accident scenes, ...It's part of my job.
Obviously my views are just that.
My views.

Having said that, ...
The wishful "heroic truck driver" steering away from disaster, is usually just wishful thinking. Nearly any major impact damages the front suspension and steering, often the spring hangers, so that the whole front axle can pivot. Physics then take over, the driver is helpless.

So, ... "While police were not prepared to speculate, several eyewitnesses had told them they believed the truck driver had averted a more serious head-on collision with the car by driving over the adjacent river bank." (Daily News)

Is rubbish.
Also there were no eyewitnesses.

"Several upset and angry truck drivers waiting in traffic yesterday morning asked why the road was not better maintained. The crash corner had not been tarsealed when other nearby roads had been, one said.

That would be because it didn't need it.

This was a sad and tragic accident, a sobering one if you are a truck driver. I believe he was confronted by a car on the wrong side of the road.