Evans Pass Accident

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30965, 22 January 1966, Page 1

Evans Pass Accident

After rounding the first hair-pin bend on Evans Pass while travelling downhill towards Sumner an articulated beer tanker crashed over a concrete retaining wall yesterday. It came to rest with the front wheels hanging in space.

The tractor’s rear wheels were held on the edge of the roadway by the low retaining wall The trailer unit, which was empty. was arched into the air, with its right-hand side wheels about three feet off the ground.

The driver was found at the foot of the gully about 200 ft below where the tanker came to rest.

It is thought that he left the cab of his truck after the crash, fell about nine feet to the ground and then rolled the rest of the distance down the steep gully. The driver, Mr James Ashley Hansen, of 12 Rowcliffe crescent, said he had rounded the hairpin bend and on the steep section had used his brakes to steady the tanker. “It jack-knifed and the further it went the worse it got,” he said. Light rain was failing ait the time. The tanker left the road Shortly after 3 p.m. For about

an hour after the road was partly blocked. One-way traffic under the direction of a traffic officer was permitted. While the tanker was being retrieved the road was blocked at the top and the bottom of the pass. A mobile crane was used to lift the trailer unit off the tractor unit while a breakdown truck held the tractor to stop it crashing further down the gully. The crane was also used to lift the tractor unit of the articulated tanker back on to the roadway. The tanker driver was taken to the Christchurch Hospital with only minor injuries. He was treated and discharged.