Another logging truck spills its load

A logging truck tipped its trailer at the roundabout of Maraekakaho Rd, Longlands Rd and State Highway 50b yesterday, spilling a 16.7 tonne load. Photo / Paul Taylor

A truck that spilled its 16.7 tonne load on the Hawke's Bay Expressway yesterday was the second logging truck to tip in two days.

The incident happened about 12.45pm at a roundabout intersecting Maraekakaho Rd, Longlands Rd and State Highway 50b.

Fortunately the driver walked away unscathed and no one was injured, but authorities said it could have been a different story.

Witness Kate Delatour watched what appeared to be a strap "flying off" as the truck careened through the roundabout and she was terrified the logs would crush her car.

"I saw it come around the corner and something flying off the truck, it seemed to have lost a strap ... then as he turned towards Napier the load fell off to one side," she said. "If it had happened a few minutes earlier, the logs would have come on to the road and they would have hit me on the left-hand side."

The experience was frightening enough to make her go directly to the nearest Lotto shop to buy a ticket.

Police said while trailers tipping on Hawke's Bay roads happened rarely, they had attended a similar incident on the same roundabout about a year ago - though they weren't blaming the stretch of road. In both cases they suspected driver error or mechanical failure may have been contributing factors.

"Speed was likely to factor into [yesterday's crash], it also might have been mechanical failure, we found a broken spring from the rear axle of the trailer on the road nearby," said Senior Constable Warwick Hayes, a member of the Commercial Vehicle Investigation Unit.

One lane was closed for more than an hour as the logs were reloaded. The trailer will be off the road until it gets the all clear from a mechanic.

Mr Hayes confirmed chains holding the logs in place had snapped under the sheer weight.

"There are a lot of high pressures involved, there was approximately 16.7 tonne of logs on the trailer, so there's a lot of pressure."

Police were still investigating exactly what caused the crash.

There was a similar event south of Dannevirke on Monday, when a logging truck lost its load, causing traffic delays for more than two hours. The truck's trailer tipped, spilling logs near Wi Duncan Rd and State Highway 2 about 6.30am. No one was injured.

First Union spokesman Edward Miller, who represents logging and industrial truck drivers, said there was "definitely a lot of pressure" on drivers to speed and deliver their goods to ports quickly. He didn't want to speculate if yesterday's crash was a result of speed because of the pending police investigation, but said there had been an "upswing" in logging truck crashes in the past few months.

"I'm not exactly sure why, but logging prices are beginning to tick up again and the aim will be to get them to the docks as soon as possible."

He said the significant contributor to historical logging truck crashes was driver fatigue.

"Often it is simply just too many hours in a row. Fatigue, cutting corners and production pressures have all been contributors to crashes."

The maximum number of hours a day truck drivers can work is 14, while 70 hours is the limit per week, which is not a rare achievement for truckies, Mr Miller said. The system for keeping track of working hours for drivers, who were often not on large pay cheques, was a simple logbook. "The logbooks are not the best system, it is far from perfect."

-In a separate incident, a car hit a lamp post on Puketapu Rd near the Taradale CBD about 12.25pm yesterday. The driver was not injured after the car crashed first into a Unison power box, then came to a halt against the lamp post.