Three wheels, the chassis and the floor of Nicole Laidler's
Subaru Impreza were damaged badly when she ran over a row
of rocks laid on a road outside Cromwell at the weekend.
Photo by Linda Robertson.
Someone's "idiotic behaviour" could have killed four
people after they placed rocks in the path of motorists near
Cromwell, says the woman who drove over them just after
midnight yesterday.
"All of a sudden, there was a hell of bang, and then stuff
just flew everywhere," Nicole Laidler said last night.
The Dunedin woman was driving to Queenstown in her Subaru
Impreza with three passengers at 12.30am yesterday when it
struck a row of stones laid across one and a-half lanes of
Kawarau Gorge Rd, near McNulty Rd, about 2km from Cromwell.
She reckoned she was travelling just under 100kmh.
Three tyres and mag wheel rims on the car were destroyed, its
windscreen was cracked and floorpans dented.
"It was like a tsunami hit the back seat floor. It's all
rippled."
The impact when the car hit the rocks was so big, Miss
Laidler thought the engine had dropped out.
She kept control of the car and pulled over.
While she and her friends were trying to find out what had
happened, a second vehicle hit the rocks and damaged a tyre.
That vehicle could be driven away once the tyre was changed.
Miss Laidler and her passengers moved the rocks off the road.
Senior Constable John Chambers, of Cromwell, said he could
not imagine the rocks had been placed on the road by an
individual.
"I think it would have been young hoons on their way to or
from the Blossom Festival [in Alexandra].
"They probably thought it was a prank or a joke but they
don't realise they have put other people's lives at risk."
He assumed the rocks had been placed on the road not long
before Miss Laidler struck them and wanted to hear from
anyone who had seen people acting suspiciously in the area.
If found, the offenders would face charges of endangering
lives by an act of criminal nuisance, Snr Const Chambers
said.
A nearby resident who stopped to help Miss Laidler offered
the group a bed for the night, which they accepted.
A friend took three new tyres and wheels to Cromwell and the
car was able to be driven back to Dunedin yesterday, she
said.
Miss Laidler was amazed last night at the stupidity of
someone doing something like that.
"What if a family had been driving there?
"What if you were towing a caravan?
"Someone's idiotic behaviour could have killed four people
last night."
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