Identified flying object

By Kath Gannaway
A CHUM Creek woman says she, and the unidentified driver of a blue ute, are lucky she wasn’t killed when a flying jerry can hit her car last week.
Tammie Albert, 25, was driving around a bend on the Chum Creek Road at around 4.20pm on Friday, 26 November, when the heavy steel can loaded with diesel fuel flew out of the back of the ute and crashed into the bonnet of her car.
“As I came around thecorner I saw it comingand slammed my foot on the brake,” Ms Albert said as she surveyed the jerry can-shaped indentation at the wreckers on Tuesday.
She said she was almost parallel with the ute when it happened.
“I just wanted to get out of the car. I didn’t know what was in the can, I just assumed it had some sort of fuel in it and I just wanted to get out in case it exploded,” she said.
“If it had been just a few inches higher it would have hit the windscreen and I could have been killed,” she said.
Yarra Glen Acting Police Sergeant Matt Bell, who attended the incident, said the outcome could have been much worse.
“She was unlucky, and lucky,” he said.
Sgt Bell said the incidentcould have seen her seriously injured, or worse, if the jerry can had gone through the windscreen.
Ms Albert said she is relieved and thankful that it was the car, and not her, that was hit, but added that she was considerably out of pocket through no fault of her own.
She had spent over $1000 on the car in the past few weeks and now the car has been written off.
Because of the car’s age, her insurance won’t return enough to get her a comparable vehicle.
She urged motorists carrying anything in a ute, open tray or trailer to make sure it was tied down securely.
“If people know how easily something like this can happen, and what the potential for tragedy is, then it might make them stop and think so this sort of thing doesn’t happen,” she said.
Sgt Bell said they had no information other than that the vehicle was a blue ute and possibly a four-wheel drive model.
He said having an unsecured load on a vehicle was an offence under the EPA Act and carried a fine of $239.
The definition, he said, was that anything carried on a vehicle must not be able to leave that vehicle without human assistance.
If anyone has any information they should contact Sgt Bell on 9730 1296.