At about 11:30 pm on Thursday night, police were called to the Hume Highway at Berremangra to respond to a B-Double having veered off the road. Police attended the scene and spoke to a 45-year-old Victorian man who was the driver of the truck at the time. He was travelling South on the Hume Highway when he noticed a vehicle parked on or near the fog line. He swerved to avoid the vehicle and, as a result, lost control of the truck, which collided with the metal ‘Armco’ railing. The truck then ran off the road and came to rest in a drainage pit on the centre median strip.
The driver was lucky to be able to get himself out of the truck on his own and was not injured. Because of the position of the truck and because it was a large B-Double, it took some time to recover. A recovery crew from the Traffic Management Centre was called in, as well as a heavy vehicle tow service from outside of the area to remove the truck from the median strip.
Yass Police Inspector David Cowell says he is concerned that this is the 4th crash involving a B-Double on the Hume Highway Yass Sector in the last two weeks. Police will be increasing their presence on the Hume Highway to address fatigue and driver distraction concerns.
Inspector Cowell’s advice to both car and truck drivers is “don’t travel when you’re tired— don’t trust your tired self. Remove the distractions from your vehicle; for example put your mobile phone in the boot of the car so you’re not tempted to play with it while you’re driving.”
Southerly Jones
