Fat attack: Six collisions after truck spills animal fat on road
A HAULAGE company faces major damages claims after one of its trucks accidentally spilled hundreds of gallons of animal fat along a busy road.
Gardai were alerted to the incident after six traffic collisions happened in less than 25 minutes on two busy approach roads to Cork city.
Traffic corps officers had to close a section of a major junction of the North Ring Road on the Cork-Limerick road.
An investigation revealed that the treacherous surface conditions had been caused by a fatty liquid.
And when gardai received calls about a spate of similar accidents in the Kinsale Road to Fivemilebridge area, they immediately suspected the incidents were linked.
Route
It is understood that, in total, almost a dozen minor collisions occurred along the route taken by the lorry.
While no one was injured in the collisions, a substantial quantity of damage was caused to the vehicles involved.
An appeal for witnesses and an examination of CCTV footage quickly yielded a description of the truck.
The vehicle was later stopped by Limerick gardai and the driver was apparently unaware of the spill.
"It was initially thought that it was an oil spill but it was only when we examined the road that we realised it was a kind of liquid fat.
Slippery
"But it left the road as slippery as if it was oil," one garda said.
It appears that the truck had travelled along the route with a load of animal fat.
It is suspected that a loading valve may not have been fully sealed, or may have worked itself loose en route -- allowing hundreds of gallons of the slippery liquid to leak onto the road surface.
Garda experts conducted an examination of both the lorry and its trailer and questioned the driver yesterday.
- Ralph Riegel
Irish Independent
