Huruhuru Rd overbridge. Photo / Google
An Auckland mother was left frightened and angry after a rock she believes was thrown from a motorway overbridge struck her windscreen.
Danielle Williams was travelling from the supermarket to her Te Atatu home at midday today when she said she saw a "group of kids" standing on the Huruhuru Rd overbridge crossing the Northwestern Motorway in Massey.
She thought nothing of it until she heard "a massive bang". She believes a rock was thrown from the bridge, striking the windscreen.
"I didn't even see it coming. It gave me such a fright. I had my baby and my aunty in the back. Even he [my baby] got a huge fright," she said.
"I've already got a tiny crack, and if it were to hit that I think my whole windshield would've just shattered."
Frightened and mad, but aware her 11-month-old son Matias was in the back seat, she had to hold it together.
"It gave me a huge fright but I mentally knew my baby was in the back so I had to take control and not freak out over it."
The rock, luckily, didn't crash through the windscreen, leaving only a big crack.
"It seems like one of the cracks that will slowly spread the more you use it. It was a really big bang, the impact of it."
"[I'm] so angry. People die from that. People have died."
The Auckland mother has a message for the people who she said threw the rock.
"Just don't do it," she said.
"They could put themselves in jail for doing that if I had died or especially if they had hit someone learning to drive or an older person. They could've spun out from that fright."
This is not the first time such an event has happened and other drivers haven't been so lucky.
In 2005, 20-year-old Taupō man Chris Currie was killed when a teenager dropped an 8kg block of concrete from the Princes St overbridge on the Southern Motorway.
He had three other passengers in the car, including girlfriend Helen McCreadie,
The concrete slab smashed through the windscreen, killing Currie instantly.
McCreadie tried to control the Honda Civic but it crashed after 200m.
In 2006, Ngatai Rewiti, 15, was jailed for four years for Currie's manslaughter.
Just 14 at the time of Currie's death, Rewiti was initially charged with murder but a jury found him guilty of the lesser charge.
A month after Rewiti was jailed, a rock was thrown from a Tauranga expressway overbridge, smashing through the rear window of a Toyota station wagon, leaving its occupants shaken - but no injured.
Meanwhile, in 2017 it appeared taxi driver became the target of rock-throwers.
Police stepped up patrols around an Auckland motorway overpass after multiple taxi drivers reported having rocks thrown at their cars.
One taxi driver said a rock narrowly missed his car while he drove under the Bader Drive bridge, while another taxi driver said his windscreen was cracked by a rock while travelling on the same section of road. Two other taxi drivers had similar stories to tell.
It led to police issuing a warning to motorists about a recent trend of people throwing objects from bridges above Auckland motorways, urging them to be vigilant.
A police spokesperson said the latest incident in 2021 was "dangerous behaviour" and urged anyone who sees it happened to notify police immediately.
A police spokesman said police did receive a report at around 12.15pm today of young people reportedly throwing stones off the overbridge, saying the caller received a cracked windscreen.
"Police attended the scene however no persons were located by our staff at the scene or identified through CCTV cameras of the location."
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