Truck stops bus

Press, 24 February 1986, Page 4

Truck stops bus

PA Dunedin A truck driver haS used his 20-tonne vehicle to stop a runaway bus carrying 35 indoor hockey players and officials.

The brakes on their Gore-based Jenkins Motors, Ltd, bus failed less than half-way down the hill at the southern entrance to Dunedin, before 9.30 a.m. on Saturday.

; After running-the bus along a power pole in a bid to stop it from gather-

ing speed, and then knocking into a small car travelling ahead of him, the bus driver, Mr Ted Lucas, caught up to a 20tonne truck driven by Mr Stanley Middlemiss. The bus resting on the rear of the truck, the pair were able to use the truck’s brakes to bring both to a safe standstill farther down the road. “I tested the brakes twice at the top of tiie hill; and they : worked O,K.j”i said a relieved Mr Lucas.

“But then there was nothing.”

“If his truck hadn’t been in front of me, I would have had to head for a bank ... and there were shops further down the road.” Mt Middlemiss said that when the bus bumped his' truck ‘twice he realised what’lwas happening and let WJhook on behind.

None; of; the Southland hockey players aboard were hurt. ’ ’’