Driver ‘bails out fast’ on Evans Pass

Press, 26 July 1978, Page 1

Driver ‘bails out fast’ on Evans Pass

A Sumner man escaped with a few scratches and a shoe missing after his car plunged 100 m off Evans Pass Road last evning and burst into flames. “I just bailed out fast when I felt the front of the car go down, otherwise I would probably not be here now,” said Mr L. D. Sinclair, of Nayland Street. Mr Sinclair landed on a rocky slope, but suffered only a few scratches on one hand. He clambered down the hillside to inspect the wreckage of his car — a brand new Subaru — and had just climbed back to the road when the wreck exploded in flames. “I couldn’t believe my luck. I could still have been trapped in the thing when it went up,” he said.

Mr Sinclair was driving from Lyttelton to Sumner over Evans Pass when the accident happened about 7.30 p.m.. well up on the Sumner side of the pass. “Something like a bird or a stone hit the windscreen, and I veered left over the bank. The car had only gone a little way down when I jumped out,” be said. “The only funny thing about it was when the ambulance roared past me as I was walking down towards Sumner. I tried to wave it down, but it just carried straight on,” Mr Sinclair said. The Fire Service was called, but the car, which was insured, was gutted by the time firemen arrived. Mr Sinclair said he would salvage the wreck himself today.