Arrest made after driver crashes his car into house
After a driver crashed through her fence and into a neighbouring property, Cathy Rigg spent most of Sunday night awake thinking how differently things could have gone.
She had just put a one-year-old child to bed in a room at the front of her Waitara, Taranaki, home when she heard a series of bangs just after 8pm.
‘‘He [the driver] must have really been travelling when it happened because of the momentum of each bang. He just kept on going.
‘‘The fence doesn’t matter; we’re insured. I just keep thinking what a lucky escape: the guy could have ploughed right through the bay window into the bedroom.’’
Rigg praised her insurance company as they had arranged for a temporary fence to go up yesterday to keep the children in.
Rigg said the intersection she lives on is an interesting one and she had been saying since they moved in five years ago that someone was going to go through the fence one day.
When her prediction came true, she and her family ran outside to see what had happened.
‘‘He got out of the car, ran down the back of my house, jumped over the little gate at the end, and jumped over the front gate.’’
Rigg said the driver then came back around to the scene trying to make it seem like someone else had been driving.
‘‘People knew it was him so chased him down the road and got him and held him there until the police came.
‘‘I don’t know that I went to sleep really.
‘‘It was such a circus, all the palings shot right back to the house.’’
The 34-year-old man was arrested and charged with dangerous driving, unlawful taking of a vehicle and excess breath alcohol.
He is due to appear at New Plymouth District Court on Thursday.