Runaway trailer speeds terrifyingly down a residential street and ploughs through bus stop and tree
This is the terrifying moment that a runaway trailer that had detached from a car came speeding down a residential street — ploughing through a bus stop before hitting a tree. Paul Tansley, 59, rushed to check his home's CCTV when he returned from work on Wednesday to discover the scene of destruction.
The footage shows the 10ft trailer race down the downhill street in Sheffield, South Yorks, smashing through the edge of a bus shelter before ripping the bus stop post completely out of the concrete. Meanwhile the driver chases helplessly after it in his 4x4. The trailer only comes to a crashing halt when it goes smashes into a large tree — which Paul says is lucky was there or it would have 'demolished a house'.
Civil servant Paul believes the driver is lucky his runaway trailer did not kill someone and that no one was waiting for a bus at the time or they would have had 'no chance'.
Paul, from Sheffield, said: "When I saw the CCTV footage I couldn't believe it. It could have easily killed someone. He took out the top right hand corner of the bus shelter and one of its posts out and the bus stop post itself. It also went into the tree and took a nice chunk of that out of it. The trailer was going incredibly fast. I don't know what happened behind that privet hedge but it clearly came off and overtook him and done all this damage."
"The driver was quite shook up apparently, quite shocked. If the trailer hadn't have hit the tree it would have carried on straight across the road and straight through one of the houses.
"It would probably demolished a house at that speed. If anyone would have been coming towards the bus stop on the pavement they would have certainly been killed. If it had been a few inches to one side it would have been fatal to anyone sat in the bus stop — there was no escape."
Paul had been out at work when the incident occurred around 1.30pm but his wife had been home. She heard the crash and came out to help, where she discovered the driver in shock.
Paul said: "I saw all the damage right away and wondered what on earth had happened. I was out at work when it happened but my wife told me she missed seeing it happen by milliseconds.
"The excuse he gave was that someone had nicked the pin that secured the trailer to his car. But I thought about this and I think it's more likely that he's not put it in right. I think he was just making excuses. She asked him if he wanted us to report it or phone the police and he said he would, he promised to do it when he got home."
"But no one came round so I contacted the police and told them what happened and the people responsible to the bus stop. The bus company said the damage had not been reported to them. It was quite a lot of damage. It took the post clean out of the ground, right out of the concrete. It will be expensive to fix, which might explain why he would want to dash."
While Paul has no idea how the trailer came off in the first place, he claims he was stunned to learn the driver reattached it and then drove on - despite allegedly claiming he did not have the pin to secure it.
Paul said: "It's downhill, which is why the trailer has picked up that massive pace. It's quite steep.
"But it must have come off at speed. It looks like he has slowed down. Where or how long ago it came off is anyone's guess. The worst thing is is that he loaded it back up with wood and he took it back home like that, again without the pin in. You wouldn't have thought he'd done that after causing so much damage - it's clearly still dangerous and he knows it. That is dodgy to me. I wonder why he would do that again knowing it's capable of coming off."
South Yorkshire Police were contacted for comment. South Yorkshire Transport declined to comment.
Author: David Keane
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