The house that's a magnet for cars

A FAMILY home on a "quiet" stretch of road in Ballina has been the brunt of three crashes in nine months - the latest when a car struck a bedroom last Monday.

Michael Lockrey

A FAMILY home on a "quiet" stretch of road in Ballina has been the brunt of three crashes in nine months - the latest when a car struck a bedroom last Monday.

"It sounded like a grenade went off," said Patricia Lockrey, adding that her three-year-old daughter was about to go into her bedroom to put on her pyjamas.

"The car aquaplaned off the corner, crashed through the fence and through the garage door into the north wall, which now has to be pulled down," Mrs Lockrey said.

Michael Lockrey said: "I've rebuilt the fence three times and didn't even get to paint it this time. This is the straw that broke the camel's back."

The family has now moved out after $90,000 damage to the home, which has been deemed structurally unsafe. They claim repeated requests to the council for speed bumps or chicanes to be installed on Links Ave have been ignored.

"We've been handballed between the council and the roads authority," he said.

Links Ave, which has a wide sweeping corner, has a speed limit of 50km/h but all the accidents have happened during rain.

"They say the road is safe because it's 50 km/h but in the rain drivers aquaplane off the corner. Someone needs to come out here and admit it doesn't meet Australian standards," Mrs Lockrey said.

Mr Lockrey added: "I hate to think what if one of my boys had been playing in the front yard? The engineer said that if the car had gone another couple of inches into the house, the whole thing could have come down."