Concrete truck hits bus

Press, 27 August 1977, Page 22

Concrete truck hits bus

PA Wellington Rush-hour traffic in central Wellington was jammed xxhen the air brakes failed on a fully laden concrete truck which crashed into a power pole and caused minor damage to two buses. One woman, a passenger in one of the buses, was taken to hospital, but was discharged after treatment. Quick thinking by the truck driver, Bruce Hape, prevented more casualties. When his brakes failed as he was driving down the Bowen Street hill near Parliament buildings, there

was a packed bus in front of him, nose-to-nose traffic in the right hand lane, and a steep bank to his left. “I aimed the truck for a poxver pole between the bus and the bank,” Mr Hape said later. “I hoped it would stop me, but it didn’t.” But it slowed the truck down, before it ran into the side of the bus, which was pushed into another bus. “It was good thinking, the only action he could have taken,” said the transport manager of Certified Concrete, Ltd, Mr Hape’s employer, later.