Handbrake failure sends lorry rolling down steep street into homes
12:25pm Friday 2nd December 2011 in News
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A DELIVERY lorry rolled down a steep residential road before tumbling over a pavement and slamming into a row of Grade II listed houses.
Stone walls were left cracked, paving slabs were shattered and a speed limit sign was damaged when a handbrake failure sent the parked truck veering down Summer Street in Stroud around 4pm
yesterday, Thursday, December 1.
It crashed down an embankment on the pavement and came to a halt against wrought iron railings – stopping just inches short of tenant Paul Thomson’s front door.
“I heard a huge, great crash and when I looked out there was a lorry parked on the porch,” said Mr Thomson, who added that the impact caused cracks on the ceiling and walls of his upstairs bedroom.
“There is a fair bit of structural damage done I expect.”
Driver Paul Pollard, who parked the lorry on an incline at the entrance to Summer Street, was delivering a sofa with a colleague to the house next door when they noticed the truck’s handbrake had
slipped.
“We were working in the house when my mate said to me, look out the window Paul and when I did I could just see it rolling down the hill towards us,” said Mr Pollard, who immediately reported the
incident to police.
“I was shaking. It is lucky the lorry was not fully loaded because it would have had a lot more weight behind it.”
Another colleague from truck owners Express Removals arrived on the scene and they eventually managed to reverse the vehicle back onto the road by propping bricks and wood planks under its front
wheels – offering a step up onto the embankment.
A spokesman for Gloucester-based Express Removals gave no comment but said it was investigating the incident.