After one of its trucks lost its load of scrap metal on the M1 Pacific Motorway last Friday, NJ Ashton was quick to take full responsibility and assist in any way it could – now the company plans to host a community barbeque for those who were impacted.
The incident caused traffic chaos, with millions of pieces of metal – around 800kg – scattered along a 25km route southbound on the M1, between Palmdale and the Mooney Mooney Bridge.
It left hundreds of motorists with tyre damage and caused significant delays.
Shortly after the incident, NJ Ashton shared a statement, “We’re taking full responsibility for what’s happened and are very sorry for any damage and disruption that’s been caused.
“As soon as we were notified about the accident, we sent every qualified mechanic we have to assist authorities and help get drivers back on the road.”
General manager of NJ Ashton Daniel Falconer today told Big Rigs that the company will now be hosting a barbeque on Friday May 16, between 11am-1.30pm, at 47 Oaks Café, located at Peats Ridge Village, 780 Peats Ridge Road, Peats Ridge.
“All are welcome to come down – we’ll have our staff there, an employee from our insurance and our driver. There’ll be sausages and steak sandwiches. Anyone impacted by the incident can come down and have a chat to us about it,” Falconer said.
“Peats Ridge was quite heavily impacted so we wanted to do something for the community. We’ve chosen the 47 Oaks Café, which was purchased by a young woman in November and everything for the barbeque is being bought locally.”
Falconer revealed that investigations into the cause of the incident are continuing and expected to take 3-4 weeks.
“The insurance and ICAM company have taken over investigations and the insurance company has established a hotline through Sedgwick, which is looking after claims.”
While most of the claims have been for damaged tyres, Falconer said there have also been some claims for windscreens and time off work.
While the majority of the approximately 1000 claims so far seem to be legitimate, there have been concerns of some trying to lodge “dodgy claims” for damage not caused by the incident.
Falconer revealed an estimate of the damage bill. “They believe it will be somewhere between $1-2 million but they’ll need to go through all of the claims.”
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