Listed: Every time a car ended up on the O-Bahn since 2013

Taking a wrong turn onto the O-Bahn is as peculiarly South Australian as smiley fritz and Stobie poles. And it’s just happened again. Discover the history of the road bungle here.

Cars have driven onto Adelaide’s O-Bahn busway at a rate of just over three a year for the past 11 years, official statistics show.

The transport department figures reveal that cars and other unauthorised vehicles ended up on the O-Bahn track on 34 occasions since 2013.

There were five incidents each year in 2013, 2018 and 2019.

So far in 2024 there have been two O’Bahn mishaps.

The most recent incident took place on Wednesday, July 10, after an 83-year-old woman drove on the track at the Paradise interchange on Darley Rd just before 6.30am.

SA Police Senior Constable Rebecca Stokes told Adelaide radio stations the woman became “well and truly stuck”.

She said the airbags were deployed and the elderly driver was “a bit shaken up but fortunately there doesn’t appear to be any serious injuries”.

The outbound track – towards Modbury – was closed between Klemzig and Paradise interchanges for more than three hours as emergency services with a crane worked to remove the Hyundai sedan.

The previous incident took place on Wednesday, February 28, and saw police called to the O-Bahn at Modbury at about 3am with reports a car had entered the track.

It was removed hours later at around 7.50am, causing delays for commuters from Tea Tree Plaza and Paradise.

A car is towed from the O'Bahn after driving onto it on Wednesday morning. Picture: 7NEWS

According to Senior constable Peta Squire, the driver of the car had suffered a medical episode and was taken to hospital for treatment.

On October 18 2023, a motorist drove onto the busway and fled the scene after getting stuck.

And back in May that year, a 79-year-old woman drove onto the busway at Paradise after making a wrong turn.

It’s a road mishap entirely unique to SA, with the earliest incident captured in the figures on March 8, 2013 when a car followed a bus onto the O-Bahn.

In the most recent mishap on the O-Bahn, on May 5, 2023, a 79-year-old motorist got stuck on the tracks at Paradise after making a wrong turn. Picture: 7NEWS

The vast majority of incidents involved cars, however in 2015, a bus not designed for the busway ended up on the track and in 2019, a taxi drove through an O-Bahn tunnel.

Of the 34 incidents, most (eight) happened at Tea Tree Plaza or a section of track coming from the interchange.

There were six incidents at, or coming from, the Park Terrace tunnel at Gilberton and four from Paradise.

There was one incident in the city in 2021 when a car drove into the tunnel on Grenfell St.

Eleven incidents did not give a specific location.

While it not known how many times unauthorized vehicles have made a wrong turn onto the O-Bahn since it began operating in 1986, The Advertiser’s archives record mishaps as far back as 1988 when a BMX bike that was left on the tracks caused two buses to collide, injuring both drivers and eight passengers while in 1994, a motorist in a stolen car drove 200m along the O-Bahn before crashing at Gilberton.

The network was shut down again for about 40 minutes in 1997 when a car drove onto the track, also at Gilberton, and became wedged between slabs of concrete, The Advertiser reported.

Also in 1997, a 44-year-old woman followed a bus onto the O-Bahn around Paradise for 2km explaining later she wanted to get into town without “getting lost”.

“I know what I did was silly, but I also feel there should be signs at the start of the O-Bahn that warn you to stay out,” the woman said.

“Interstate people can easily make the mistake I did.

“I should thank people who helped - everyone was helpful, particularly the Holden Hill police.

“But it has been a very unhappy experience - the phone hasn’t stopped ringing and some see it as a joke.

“It was not funny at all; I suppose I could have been killed”.

There were no incidents recorded in 2010 or 2011 and at least five incidents in 2012, in the six months between April and September.

In 1997 the driver of this Valiant discovered that ending up on the O-Bahn is no laughing matter. “I could have been killed,” she said at the time. Photo: Steve Morenos/The Advertiser.

A spokesperson for the Transport Department said the costs of removing a car from the busway could be as high as $6000 if a crane was required.

The department’s policy was to recover any costs from the driver or their insurance company, however in many cases, no costs were incurred because cars could simply be driven away, the spokesperson said.

The department had no plans to introduce any further measures to stop people from driving onto the O-Bahn at Tea Tree Plaza and said all entrances to the busway featured prominent signs, road markings and the Park Terrace entrance had flashing lights to prevent drivers from ending up on the busway.

Adelaide’s O-Bahn was the second guided busway to be built in the world after the German city of Essen and was the longest and fastest in the world until it was overtaken by a busway in Cambridge in 2011.

Originally published as Listed: Every time a car ended up on the O-Bahn since 2013