Traffic Banks Up After Collision

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30337, 13 January 1964, Page 13

Traffic Banks Up After Collision

Holiday and Sunday afternoon traffic returning to Christchurch late yesterday afternoon banked up for about a mile through Kaiapoi and further north along the Main North road after a collision involving four cars and a 71-ton transporter owned by the Fletcher Construction Company, Ltd. Although one car was extensively damaged, the occupants of ail five vehicles escaped injury. A long line of traffic was travelling towards Christchurch at 5 p.m. in heavy rain when the car ahead of the transporter stopped. The transporter driver also braked, but the wheels of the unladen vehicle skidded on the wet road and the transporter rode up on to a trailer attached to the car ahead. The trailer was crushed, and the weight of the transporter on the trailer drawbar broke the rear of the car chassis. The impact pushed the car into a vehicle ahead of it, and this vehicle struck another car. A following car

struck the rear of the transporter when its brakes did not grip in time. The accident occurred on the Main North road at its intersection with the Ohoka road, half a mile south of Kaiapoi. The car damaged by the transporter had to be towed away, but the other four vehicles, with only , minor damage to front or rear, were driven off. A constable in Kaiapoi said that the accident caused a big congestion of traffic through Kaiapoi and further north. The traffic cleared, however, soon after the vehicle was towed away. There was no question of speed, and no action would be taken about the accident, the constable said.