IT COULD be labelled the Bermuda Triangle of the region’s roads.
The ill-fated strip of the New England Highway between Tamworth and Willow Tree claimed another truck at about 1.20am yesterday.
A 29-year-old Murray Bridge man escaped from his prime mover unscathed after crashing into the Quirindi Creek Bridge at the northern end of Wallabadah.
The driver said a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction had moved onto the wrong side of the road withhis lights on high beam which had caused him to take evasive action and resulted in the prime mover hitting the bridge.
The trailer axles were damaged extensively as a result of the impact and the vehicle’s fuel tanks were ruptured.
The bridge guard rails were also seriously damaged as a result of the incident.
Volunteers from the Rural Fire Service, ambulance officers and staff from Liverpool Plains Shire Council all attended the scene of the accident.
In the past two months, two other vehicles have come to grief on the New England Highway between Tamworth and Wallabadah.
On April 7 a 42-year-old man died in an accident 20km south of Tamworth.
The man was travelling in the back seat of a red Honda Civic hatchback when the driver of the vehicle allegedly swerved to avoid hitting a fox. The vehicle then left the roadway and crashed into an embankment.
On May 2 a truck driver had lady luck looking over his shoulder when he walked away from his mangled semi-trailer after it failed to negotiate a bend in the highway at the junction of Howard Rd, about 5 km north of the Willow Tree truck stop.
At the time of the May 2 accident Wallabadah resident, local NRMA mechanic and Rural Fire Services volunteer Paul Fahey told The Leader he was aware of three previous truck accidents at the same site.
Mr Fahey was quoted as saying “the camber of the road seems to go the wrong way”.
According to crash statistics provided by the RTA in early April there had been more than 100 accidents on the New England Highway between Willow Tree and Tamworth in the previous 12 to 18 months.
A spokesperson for the RTA said those accidents had resulted in the deaths of six people and 46 injuries.