WATCH: ‘By the time the truck was going downhill, I realised it was too late’ says driver
It was the driver's first day at work.
Investigations are pending after another truck, belonging to Power Truck Hire, rammed into the Elgin Road bridge on Tuesday afternoon last week.
The truck, which was driven by an employee of the company that leased it, remained stuck for around two hours, causing annoyance among motorists during peak hour traffic.
After waiting for almost two hours for a tow truck to arrive from Pretoria, employees of Power Truck Hire, who were also at the scene, saved the day by reversing it from underneath the bridge. The tow truck arrived on the scene shortly afterward.
After reversing the truck up the hill, it was parked on the side of the road on Elgin Road, where its goods were transferred to another truck before it was towed away.
Stoffel Smit, loss control manager of Power Truck Hire, said the matter is currently under investigation.
“We will check the speed at which the vehicle was travelling at the time of the accident. We will then give a report to the insurance company. At this stage, we are waiting for an assessment of the damage.”
Smit said the insurance belonged to the client who was leasing the vehicle. He said accidents like this hardly occurred with their trucks. However, damage had been done to some of their trucks before but not to this extent.
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The driver of the truck, who did not want to be identified, said the day had been bad for him as it was his first day at work.
He said he was unfamiliar with the place, therefore, missed the sign on the bridge.
“By the time the truck was going downhill, I realised it was too late. This is definitely a bad day for me. I could not believe what had happened,” he said.
The Elgin Road bridge is 3m in height.
