Car’s High-Speed Dive From Auckland Wharf

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29224, 7 June 1960, Page 12

Car’s High-Speed Dive From Auckland Wharf

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, June 6.

A car raced down Hinemoa street and crashed over the Birkenhead wharf this evening close to the spot where two other cars plunged into the harbour earlier this year.

The crash, which occurred at 7.55 p.m., was seen by four adults and two children seated in two cars parked on the wharf.

The four adults said the car seemed to be travelling between 60 and 70 miles an hour. It hit the safety rail at the edge of the wharf with a terrific bang, and leapt about 30ft through the air before disappearing into the sea.

The speed of the car prevented them from seeing how many persons were in it, or of even identifying the type of car.

One of the eye-witnesses was Mrs Gwenyth Walker, of Birkenhead, who was in a car with her two children and a friend. Mrs Walker said she turned in her car and saw the car coming down the hill toward the wharf at between 60 and 70 miles an hour.

“I thought it didn’t have a chance of stopping,’’ she said. “It just hit the safety rail with a tremendous bang, leapt through the air, and disappear. “I couldn’t see a soul in it,” she said, “because it was going so fast.”

In the other car parked on the wharf was Mr Alfred Christopher Essex, of Devonport, and a friend. “All I saw,” Mr Essex said, “was the car turning a flip over the wharf. I could see the tail lights. It seemed to be travelling at a terrific speed. The whole thing was over in a flash. There was a terrific bang as the car hit the safety rail.” Police Called

Mr Essex immediately drove to the Birkenhead Police Station and informed Mrs Stewart, wife of Constable N. L. J. Stewart. Constable Stewart, who was on patrol in Northcote, was called, and hurried to the wharf. Within a few minutes Sergeant K. O. Thompson, of Takapuna, and Constable P. R. Freakley, of the Central Police Station, arrived at the wharf.

The police launch, Lady Shirley, was summoned by radio telephone, and after examining the area close to the wharf began a patrol between the Auckland harbour bridge and the Chelsea sugar refinery. The Auckland Harbour Board’s floating crane, which had hauled the two previous cars from the water near the same wharf, was soon on her way to Birkenhead with a diver, Mr Graham Telford. A North Shore St. John ambulance stood by on the wharf. At the time of the accident the tide was half out and was on the ebb. A strong easterly wind churned up a vigorous chop. The safety rail, seven inches high, which the car hit before leaping into the water, bore several deep gouges where the

impact took place. This was on the western side of the wharf only a few feet to the right of the spots where the two previous cars crashed into the sea. Earlier Accidents

Four persons—a husband and wife and their two sons—were drowned when their car plunged off a vehicular ferry in 1955. The first accident this year occured on January 16, when a car driven by Wyndnam Reginald Jones, of Birkenhead, plunged off the end of the wharf. He escaped, but his wife, Mrs Veronica Jones, of Grey Lynn, and his sister, Miss Thelma Muriel Jones, a wardmaid at the Auckland Hospital, were drowned. On May 1, a car drove off the wharf. Mr David Watkins, of Milford, was drowned, and his two sons, Rodney, aged six, and Peter, aged two, have not been found.