Truck Meets Telegraph Pole

One afternoon we were cutting grass in the front garden. It was a sunny and pretty warm day so was well covered with long sleeves and sun screen, hat, sunglasses and gloves to protect from the sun. We had reached the middle of the garden where there was a tremendous bang heard loudly over the lawnmower’s noise. I looked to see if something had gone wrong with the mower even though the sound was well above that of a mower dying. So, we stopped the mower and moved to the footpath to check up and down the road.

There was big 40 tonne truck across the road with the cab pushing over the telegraph pole which was at the corner with another side road. The truck engine was still running but there was no driver. Now on the same side of the road as my house, in the next block are a number of warehouses and trucks constantly arriving and departing from there. There is a huge drive and gate to this business area. The perimeter is closed with a fairly strong and high wire fence. The land inside the fence is a slope as we are on a hill. The road inside the site is higher than the road outside the fence. What happened was pieced together with comments from some neighbours and local news as well as seeing the site the next day when I walked past it. This truck apparently had been parked on the road inside the business park and the driver stepped out without engaging the handbrake. This truck somehow rolled literally sideways down the slope and through the fence across the road and slam into the telegraph pole which has major electricity cables. All power down hill from that pole was lost. We could see live wires trailing to the ground.  

The police arrived and road was hastily closed for traffic. The power company vehicles rolled in pretty fast and the engineers set to repair work. The power coming into that section had to be turned off so they went up the one in front of our house to disconnect the rest. This was the first time I had seen some of my neighbours as all came out to see the crash. There were pictures taken and one neighbour was videoing the scene. The cars coming down the road were diverted to the side road just before the crash site and of course people stopped to see what happened and some were u-turning and going back.  This happened around 3 pm and we were wondering how they would manage to get the truck off the road before dark. We were sure it would not happen till next morning. But no, they worked till late. They managed to straighten the pole, wires were reattached and last but not least the articulated truck with the cab at an angle was all removed and road reopened. That excitement was a talking point for a few weeks.