Man to be charged after car’s plunge down bank

Press, 7 February 1985, Page 9

Man to be charged after car’s plunge down bank

A man will be charged with driving with an excess blood-alcohol level after his car plunged off Park Terrace, Lyttelton, and down a bank above the waterfront yesterday afternoon.

“It was a miracle that noone was seriously injured,” said Senior-Sergeant lan Freeman of the Ministry of Transport, last evening. "Only a couple of trees in the right place stopped the car flipping all the way down.”

At least three passengers were in the car, two of whom were taken to hospital with minor injuries. The accident occurred at 4.30 p.m. on Park Terrace just before the first layby on the way to Corsair Bay. The Fire Service was

asked to stand by at the scene.

A passer-by, who saw the car after it had fallen down the bank, said it would have hit tanks storing petrol on the waterfront near the Magazine Bay marina if it had fallen further. The accident occurred just half an hour after the Ministry of Transport had cleared a backlog of heavy traffic on the Corsair Bay road.

Vehicles parked on both sides of the narrow road had stopped traffic for about two hours, said Senior-Sergeant Freeman. A bus attempting to travel along the road and a heavy truck carrying a bulldozer coming the other way blocked the road when

they could not get through the parked cars.

Traffic officers had physically lifted cars as far to the side of the road as they could to get the vehicles through, said Senior-Sergeant Freeman.

Officers also stopped cars on the road to avoid further congestion. It took about two hours to clear the road, he said. Traffic behaviour on roads round Christchurch had been generally good yesterday, he said. A young woman, aged 17, was taken to hospital with moderate injuries yesterday after a car in which she was travelling hit a fence. The accident occurred at 3.20 p.m. on Drain Road, Doyleston.