Chaotic road accident at the bottom of Duke Street

I was amazed to read in the Star/Retro, Tuesday, April 2, of the chaotic road accident at the bottom of Duke Street. It brought back memories of me actually being there as a bystander and seeing the road littered with hundreds of cardboard boxes.

The interesting point of me writing this letter is to point out something that I have never forgotten in all these years as I was 17 at the time.

Every one of those boxes had printed on it, (Morphy Richards iron), something I remember to this day, and Duke Street was completely blocked with them.

Heavy vehicles’ brakes failed on a number of occasions resulting in similar accidents, and that is why vehicles over 7.5 tons were prohibited from travelling down Duke Street, and it is still in force to this day.

I personally think it is now outdated to make these restrictions with modern vehicles and very efficient air braking systems.

We have a main arterial road in to the city that does not allow most vehicles to use it, only buses, taxis and cyclist are allowed to travel down to the bottom of Duke Street and I think this is very outdated and needs to be looked at, opening it back up to all traffic and relieving Broad Street of heavy congestion.