15 crashes in 20 years: Is this our most smashed-through fence?
IT'S known as “the house that’s always got a hole in the fence” — having been smashed through 15 times in the past 20 years. So fearful of it happening again, Sue Alder refuses to let her children play in the front yard. DO YOU HAVE A SIMILAR STORY?
NSW
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SUE Alder believes she has “Sydney’s most crashed-through front fence” but it’s less a source of pride than a source of fear one of her grandchildren might be hit and killed.
It has been flattened 15 times in the past 20 years by drivers who lose control on a notoriously dangerous S-bend that becomes an “ice rink” in the wet.
“I don’t take my grandchildren out the front because there’s a very real chance they’ll be seriously injured, or heaven forbid, worse,” Mrs Alder told The Sunday Telegraph.
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Her Frenchs Forest home is on a stretch of Prince Charles Rd between Blackbutts Road and Adams St that forces cars to perform two quick turns, which drivers regularly underestimate and overcorrect.
Rather than giving out the street number, Mrs Alder’s adult children find it more effective to direct visitors to “the house that’s always got a hole in the fence”, while fencing contractors laugh in disbelief when she calls them up for yet another quote.
On February 25 this year, her fence scored a trifecta — a P-plater driving a Honda Jazz went through the fence and ended up resting on a trailer in the Alders’ front yard.
Minutes later a red Toyota hatchback spun out and ended on the footpath next to the first crash and then a few minutes after that a blue hatchback spun 360 degrees and joined the other two.
Three months later, on June 1, the Alders lost power after a car skidding towards their front fence hit an adjacent power pole and brought the wires down.
According to her neighbour, retired firefighter Ben Hallett, 43, it’s only a matter of time until a child is mown down by an out-of-control car.
“I was a professional firefighter for six years and have been with the Rural Fire Service for 24 years, so I know a lot about crashes, and I can tell you it’s simply a lottery when a pedestrian will be hit,” Mr Hallett said.
“We’ll hear a skid 80 per cent of the time it rains and there will be an accident 30 per cent of the time. Once there’s been one accident, about 40 per cent of the time there’ll be a second or third.
“There needs to be a crash barrier to protect pedestrians and I just hope something happens before someone’s killed.”
Ironically the footpath is so popular for walking and cycling, the state government announced funding to widen the footpath to promote “healthy family activity” for the benefit of students at nearby Wakehurst Public School and those using Lionel Watts Reserve.