A LOCAL family narrowly escaped serious injury after a truck smashed into their station wagon before hurtling into a canal this week.
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The 16-year-old driver of the car, Mark Coram, had only obtained his learner’s permit two days before the accident.
Mark was travelling along Murrumbidgee Avenue towards Griffith about 4.30 on Wednesday afternoon when the truck driver failed to give way and pulled out from Thorne Road in front of him.
With his mother Tanya Coram in the passenger seat and his four-year-old sister in the back, Mark quickly swerved to avoid the truck – which hit the passenger side of the car – and smashed into the safety railing on the left-hand side of Thorne Road.
The truck careered through the intersection and into the canal which runs parallel to Murrumbidgee Avenue, spilling its heavy load of skips.
Ambulance crews were first on the scene and all three people in the car were taken to hospital with grazes and bruises, while Mark sustained a broken arm.
The driver of the truck escaped with a few cuts and bruises and did not need medical treatment.
For Mrs Coram, it was her second car accident in six weeks after her car collided with the back of a school bus on Foreshaw Avenue in June.
She said the family was badly shaken.
“I’d been driving that route with Mark just to get him used to steering and that sort of thing because he’s never really driven before,” Mrs Coram said.
“The truck just went straight through – he (the driver) didn’t even look.”
