A truck driver died on site from a road accident on Saturday evening in Negara, Jembrana.
The truck had been moving eastbound on the national road from Denpasar to Gilimanuk at KM 119-120 in Melaya Village when the accident happened at about 5 pm.
Six construction workers were being transported in the truck when suddenly, the truck allegedly went out of control, crashed into the bridge, and plunged into shallow water with a depth of about 2 meters.
The driver, Aji Trisnowardani, 22, was the only one to suffer serious injuries from the crash—he eventually reportedly died on the spot.
The accident was allegedly caused by the driver’s negligence when he swerved as far as 10 meters from the bridge.
“The truck was moving at a high speed from the west towards the east. However, when arriving at a sharp bend to the left before the bridge, the truck swerved to the right so it went off the road and hit a tree that was on the outside shoulder of the road,” Jembrana Police’s traffic unit chief I Gede Sumadra Kerthiawan explained to Tribun Bali.
“The driver died on the spot and material losses are estimated at Rp 8 million,” he added.
But this isn’t the first tragedy to strike at this particular bridge in Negara. Locals apparently believe the thing is haunted.
“People have already died here a number of times from accidents. In the past, there were also buses and trucks that plunged from the bridge, and also many victims. Lastly, there was a car that crashed into a palm tree in front of my house, totaling his car. The driver said he was trying to avoid hitting a beautiful woman with long hair who was crossing,” a local resident who lives near the scene of the accident told Tribun Bali, though declined to give his name.
The unidentified resident said locals even tried holding a ‘mecaru’ ceremony with red-feathered chickens and tuak Kesimbukan (palm wine). There were no accidents immediately following the ceremony, but now another accident has happened again, he explained.
Illustration: Pixabay
