Pride Cometh ...

click pic to embigulate

Before a fall ...

"Fire Brigade Please"

Click Pic for Bigness

I'm heading home, and a 4x4 is parked at the side of the road, smoking gently.

As I trundle past, I realise that this is more than an overheating problem, but a fire.


I don't carry a fire extinguisher, so I sacrifice a thermos of coffee, then help the homeward bound fisherman to unload his gear and unhitch his boat. (Note coffee stains)

By the time I get my camera, the 4x4 is well alight.

It is diesel, and so the risk of explosion is small, though the front tire explodes with a very loud bang.

Oblivious, to the unfolding drama, a traffic controller sticks staunchly to her lollypop in the background.


The fire brigade deal with it in short order,


and as more flashing lights arrive, and the heavens open, I slide off home...


For a coffee ...

Used Cars

click pic to biggify

Last night, this car transporter left the road, just south of Piopio.

Obligingly, he ended up well off the road, and so I slept the frosty night through in my warm bed.

Today we had to recover it, and there was no option but to close the road, and put a lengthy detour in place.

You can see why.

The crane takes up the whole road, and Murphy's Law states that there must always be at least a 11kv power line in the way.


The job went pretty smoothly, but it takes a while, even if things go well.

I did offer a couple of hundred bucks for the Range Rover Vogue and was willing to toss in a few kilo's of onions from last weeks roll over on State Highway 4.



I think they are still considering my generous offer ....

"See You Later"

This stretch has been sealed for a couple of hours and has already collected it's first victim.

Despite 30 K speed restrictions and plenty of warning signs, the traffic was barrelling into this corner, it was rather tense recovering the car.

That fine chip is very slippery and should be treated like ice.

We have also sweated over this bit of road, and fast traffic will tear up the tender new soft surface.

As the Towie said,

"I'll see you later, ....probably right here.... "

Put The Cone Out And They Will Come ...

This is taken from my gateway.

The car, travelling away from the camera, has taken out a tree, and is extensively damaged.

Car crashes make a hell of a noise.

Watching England's latest rugby humiliation from my couch, I heard it coming and was out the door as it impacted.

The woman driving was scratched and shaken.

She had unerringly nailed my "On Duty" road cone outside the gate.

I had to cut the tree off the car, a passing car club giving a hand.

At least it ended up off the road ...

Wet Weekends

These sorts of accidents are a bloody nuisance.

The 4x4 was heading uphill, put a wheel in the ditch and over it went, facing back from whence it came.
The driver was OK, but not present.

We can put cones around it, (It's not quite on the road) and some signs up and head home to the fire, but the phone will go constantly at the local police station, and there is still the problem of recovery and the consequent oil, diesel, mud on the road.

Also people will keep on stopping, even with traffic cones surrounding the scene.
This can cause chaos

Accidents breed accidents.

The upshot is that I get wet waiting for the cop.

Then we both get wet waiting for the Towie.

Then we all get wetter recovering it.

And all the while my full coffee thermos still sits, forgotten, on the kitchen table ...

It All Went Swimmingly ...

The 4x4 was dragged out of the river this morning.

Our top local digger operator and the Towie, (who has been doing a good trade recently) pulled it out after a diver hooked it up.

It seemed a bit odd to see the blue & white "diver down" flag by our river.

At about this stage the digger was having a bit of a problem keeping it's footing.

A digger in the river would cost a lot of boxes of beer (embarrassment tax)

So the tow line was hooked to the car and held it steady, and we used the winch on my truck to make sure the digger didn't have a swim.

The digger then pulled it out from a better position.

Easy Peasy ...

Ice Follies

Well, that was weird...

I've just got back from being called out to a hail storm, about 6 kms away.

There was a hail up to your ankles in a small 200 metre section of the highway.

Enough to cause havoc anyway as cars slid off the road and gracefully rotated this way and that.

The lone local cop was looking slightly flustered.

A 4x4 took out the roadside fence, but once a few flashing lights arrived calm was restored and the ice soon melted.

I can't believe how localized it was.

Very weird...

Alway's On A Friday ...

The Taranaki Rescue Helicopter sidles gingerly in for a landing on Mt Messenger.

It's not hard to see the skill required to safely get close to an accident scene.

A car & van collided on a slippery corner with one injured.

I had only time to grab a shaky photo, as we tried to get rid of a fuel spill.

Diesel leaking from insecure truck fuel caps is a curse on this stretch of road. This is especially true of the shady south side, which is also continually wet.
When you also add the mind set of the would-be rally driver to the mix, which this part of the road also seems to inspire, you have a potent mix, which keeps us busy.

This is one section of road that my fellow Kiwis should treat with respect.

It Bites...

Soggy Saturday

Saturday is usually a cruisy, uneventful day.
I trundle the highway picking up rubbish from the rest areas

Not today though.
It all went wrong from the start.

I came around a corner a couple of kilometres from home in steady rain to find a motorbike on the road and the rider lying there very still.
Fortunately he was alive and lucid, and a passerby got through to the ambulance on a cell phone.

It was in a nasty spot, but I had some cones and lots of flashing lights.
It is often the fact that unusual activity will slow traffic better than signs.
A furiously waving figure in a fluro vest, with a steely look in his eye, slows most.

The cop and I waited in the rain after the ambulance left, eyeing the crumpled bike and mentally figuring how long it would take for a salvage truck to recover it.
The local towie is having truck problems, and they are never keen to drive miles to pick up a motor bike anyway.

We can do it, but there are obvious issues with storing, any recovery damage, etc.
So we don't.

But I did.

I dropped it at the police station thereby saving the owner a heap, and two people getting very wet.

But not before a small slip on Mt. Messenger, on a dodgy corner, with the potential to cause chaos.
We ripped into it and had it cleaned up as the police arrived.
He didn't get wet either.

But I did ....

Lost & Found

A rather lost looking individual stopped one of our guys on Monday.
He had crashed his car on the weekend, then couldn't remember where.
Must have been a good party.

The cone is a giveaway in the photo.
It has been found.
It is a sign to us and others, that something has been seen.

In the willows you can see the missing car.

They are weedy looking trees, but it has unerringly found a big stump
and looks rather bent and sad.

No, ... Through The Gate ...

This driver had a fright a couple of days ago.

The bank is really steep, much steeper than it appears in the photo.

How it stayed on its wheels is a mystery.



But the farmer won't be too happy.

Oh Cruel Fate...

There was a catastrophe of monumental proportions on State Highway 4 last night.

A Beer truck went over and spilled it's load.

It had Guinness on board.

I wasn't there

I am extremely distressed.

I think I will lock myeslf away and play my Bhartiphone.

A Morning After.

Last Night, this was a scene of flashing lights and tragedy.
In daylight, this is now just an unremarkable bit of road.
Just a few paint marks where the Police Serious Crash Unit have highlighted marks showing scuff & skid marks, and seal features.

On the back of my truck are about eight rubbish bags, containing shards of plastic and the shrapnel that is left after a crash. A fair bit of what was a nice BMW.

The Crash Unit are thorough. Every inch of the scene is photographed, and surveyed. It is treated like a crime scene, and so the road is closed.
This obviously frustrates motorists, who usually don't understand what is going on. Crucial evidence may be obliterated by passing traffic, and there is their own safety to consider.
We cop the flak here. We are the ones stopping traffic and detouring them.
It is always complicated by the fact that nobody can give a precise estimate of how long the delay will be, every accident is different.
The crash unit also has to arrive at the scene and that means a long but high speed dash from (in this case) Hamilton.
Most people are philosophical about the delay. There is always the odd arsehole.
I used to be quite polite and grit my teeth when they railed on about how important their trip is.
Not anymore.
None of us want to be there.
I give them heaps.

A Fateful Night.

Just back home after being called out to an accident within a kilometre of home.
Alas, a fatal one, a motor cyclist killed, and a car driver injured.
We have had to close the road and detour traffic, then clean up.

It's good to be able to do something, but always disturbing to say the least.

"The bow is bent, the arrow flies, The winged shaft of fate."
(Ira Frederick Aldridge, On William Tell)

Another long weekend begins ...

Losing The Plot

A bit of rain on a weekend and we can find the drains and water table filled with cars. There were six people killed on the roads this friday, and any number of minor crashes. Here are two I discovered this morning. Speed is an obvious factor here, both cars heading towards the camera failed to take the corner.

Both got a bloody good fright.

Today we replaced a guardrail at a corner with a deadly and macabre history.
It had been damaged by a semi that jack-knifed, fortunately with no injuries.
In 1995 a car left the road on this corner, killing an asian couple, when the vehicle landed in a small but flooded stream.
A police dive team searching the stream found another car with two men in it that had left the road 4 days before.
The two men had been away on a bit of a jaunt, and had not been missed.
There is a little a little memorial plaque behind my two work-mates, placed by the family of the asian couple, and two of the crosses commemorate the earlier crash.
This corner did not have a guardrail then, and has since been widened, and given better visibility.
When you look at the tiny stream, it is hard to believe that it turned killer.

Close To Home ....

There is an S bend within 100m of the Fart Residence, that sees a fair bit of action. We get a steady stream of accidents, especially in the weekends. It has been pretty quiet for the last six weeks since we upgraded the warning signs, but tonight as I started to watch a rerun of the All Black test match, there was the unmistakable crunching crash, then a deathly silence. A dazed bruised and shaken young lady, survived the crash, but was so nearly taken out by a semi truck that missed the wrecked car by inches, a minute or so afterwards. The Semi must have had ABS brakes, he didn't jackknife, and his trailer stayed on the road. So a chance to catch up on the local gossip with the tow truck driver, cop & ambulance driver, all of whom have been marvelling at how quiet it has been on the accident front, and what a twat Clive Woodward is....

For Amanda, Cindy, & Sarah

A couple of us spent an idyllic morning on the river the other day, splashing bout in a small dinghy as a surveyor measured the profile of the banks, and sounded the depths. The mist had cleared, the sun shone, it was tranquil and all was at peace.
It is not always like this.
Last Christmas day, we were to go to a friends place to have Xmas Dinner. An especially tasty wild pig had been dispatched with extreme prejudice, and we were to provide the deserts. The cars were packed and as we readied to leave and travel down through the Awakino Gorge, the skies suddenly opened, and for twenty minutes there was a torrential deluge. Sporting a new Father Xmas hat, and a handknitted jersey with a clown on the front, I didn't fancy getting soaked, so I dallied till it eased and then headed off in my little MX5. Two kilometres into the Gorge, all was confusion and horror. A van, carrying seven, had failed to take a 45 kilometre corner and was in the river. There were three children still inside. The river was high and running fast. There was no sign of a vehicle. The emergency services were arriving in force. A helicopter made sweeps of the river. A brave paramedic was winched into the river and towed upstream to see if he could feel a vehicle with his legs. I had a flouro jacket, boots and swandri in my car, so I changed out of my hideously incongruous Xmas clothes, and set up Traffic Control. The van was found, fairly close into the bank, and a good two metres under the surface. We all knew the outcome. The normally chatty fire brigade were pretty quiet. A line was attached to the van and secured by the local towie, and the long wait for cranes, and the police dive team to come up from Wellington began. Xmas dinner consisted of hamburgers, our table the bonnet of a police car.
It was getting on for 10pm when the crane finally & slowly lowered the van onto the road. Fruit, travel snacks, and Xmas presents spilling out of the shattered back window. The three girls were still strapped in, they were taken out by the fire brigade and finally finished their trip to New Plymouth in two unmarked hearses. The van was righted and lowered onto the towies trailer. We cleaned up, generators roaring away, nobody saying much. It was nearly midnight by the time I finally made it to my friends place. I didn't feel like celebrating Christmas. I thought about drinking an awful lot of whisky, but I didn't. I went to bed.
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