Front yard crasher ‘couldn’t drive a straight line to save himself’

SHOCKING footage has emerged of a drunk man’s wild ride from The Ville before his eventual crash in the front yard of a North Ward home.

Emergency services were called to the crash in Bundock Street just after 3.30am yesterday after reports of a single-vehicle rollover.

The Toyota Hilux took out a set of traffic lights, rolled three times and landed in the front yard of a home, damaging another car inside a garage.

Samuel Brennan was drinking at The Ville when he first saw the man involved in the crash.

“He was just very intoxicated and cruising around trying to start fights with just about everyone who walked past him,” Mr Brennan said.

“My mate tried to deter him from doing anything too silly and help the security staff out.

“He was being a smart a--e, saying racial slurs, stuff like ‘I’ve been here 20 years, this is my land’.”

Mr Brennan and his friends later saw the 25-year-old man when they were leaving the venue.

“As I opened my door (to the car) I looked up because I heard something come hooting out of the car park.

“That’s when my mate said, ‘that’s that fella who was trying to start fights with everyone’.

“He was blind, he should not have been driving.”

Mr Brennan and his friends followed the vehicle and began filming, capturing footage of the car going through a red light in Flinders Street and nearly crashing with a taxi.

“At one stage he pulled up in his car and was sitting there

Samuel Brennan and Haylie von Bischoffshausen, who captured the car rampage (right). Picture: SHAE BEPLATE.

for like 30-40 seconds and we went around him. It was like he was asleep.

“All of a sudden he started moving again and he came hooking around the corner. He nearly went up the island and lost it. He couldn’t drive in a straight line to save himself.”

After losing him for a couple of minutes, the group found the car smashed up in a front yard.

“I said that I thought he was going to come unstuck, but you don’t ever see it,” Mr Brennan said.

“He nearly took out a milkman who was sitting in his car doing his paperwork. He only missed him by half a metre.”

The vehicle smashed through the front fence of a home and cleaned up a parked Nissan X-trail.

Mr Brennan said the homeowner was concerned about his beloved pet when he emerged from the home.

“He was just in shock I think. He wasn’t overly angry or sad, nothing.

“He was looking for his staffy. In the back of my head I was hoping the dog wasn’t at the fence and got wiped out.”

Townsville station officerin-charge Senior Sergeant Dean Cavanagh said police were very lucky members of the public were on the scene first to help.

Senior Sergeant Cavanagh said police believe the man was s drunk at the time.

“(It) appears at this stage that alcohol was involved … but there was also some empty beer bottles inside the vehicle,” he said.

“(His behaviour is) dangerous for the driver, dangerous for anyone on the roads at that time.

“You don’t have to be in a 100km/h zone on the highway to be a risk … (police were) very, very concerned about his behaviour.”

The man was taken to hospital with minor injuries and bloods were taken. He has not been charged at this stage.