Capsize Of Tunnel Spoil Truck Worries Residents

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29719, 12 January 1962, Page 8

Capsize Of Tunnel Spoil Truck Worries Residents

When a 20-ton loaded dump truck carting spoil from the Christchurch-Lyttelton road tunnel overturned last evening on the motorway being built from the tunnel to connect with Ferry road, it added to the anxiety Mr and Mrs J H. Stewart, of 151 Port Hills road, have felt since the turne) contract began.

The couple live in a home ■bout 15ft from the motorway—the boundary is a mere 3ft from a corner of their house. It is below road level and just below the top of a rise down which the dump trucks and other heavy equipment run with the spoil to form the foundations for the motorway.

“We know the tunnel has to go through, we can cope with the noise of the machine; 24 hours a day for six days of the week, and of the blasting and of the dust: but we are still concerned at the danger." Mr Stewart said last evening. “We’ve told the contractors and the chairman of the Road Tunnel Authority (Mr W. S. Mac Gibbon). but the trucks still travel too fast down the incline.” The accident last evening

had proved their point, the couple said. The heavy truck overturned and jack-knifed, ending with its wheels to the sky, on the road about 50 yards past their home. The driver was thrown clear and escaped with abrasions.

"When Mr Mac Gibbon was tackled at a meeting in the Heathcote Valley about the speed of the trucks, he said none of the drivers wanted to commit suicide.” Mrs Stewart said. “This one nearly did tonight” Bulldozers quickly righted the dump truck, pushed away the spoil it had been carrying, and cleared the road for the other trucks working through the night. A reporter and a photographer from “The Press” went to the scene of the accident. In the meantime, the dump truck had been righted and towed to the side of the roadway. As they waded through ankle-deep dust from Mr Stewart's home, the reading foreman (Mr J. Sullivan) drove up in a truck with the command: “No photographs.” Told that the photograph

could be taken from Mr Stewart’s property, Mr Sullivan said nothing could be done without the authority of Mr J. G. Smith, the tunnel project engineer. But there was little to photograph, except a heavy dump truck with a badly knocked-in front.

“That could have gone through our house.” Mr Stewart told Mr Sullivan “It’s not good enough.” Back at their home, the Stewarts showed the news; paper representatives that they had moved into their lounge room, even shifting their mattress from the bedroom, the room nearest the roadway. “There are good and bad drivers,” Mrs Stewart added “Some seem to love the roar and clashing gears of the dump trucks, which have

been called ‘kangaroos.’ while others have some thought for us and for themselves.” If there was a speed limit on the incline, the Stewarts would rest easier, they said. As dump trucks went past last evening, they were travelling slower than usual, the Stewarts said.