DESPITE a mini-platoon of “incident response vehicles” and tow trucks at the ready, it took just a minor prang on Stirling Highway on Thursday morning to cause a couple of hours of traffic snarls through Fremantle and East Fremantle.

You had to feel for the clean-up crew charged with getting things back on track, as they found themselves facing a situation that probably wasn’t in the manual – two cars had virtually welded themselves together in a rear-ender and couldn’t be simply towed out of the way (below).

A bemused police officer told the Herald a tradie’s ute had become slightly “airborne” in the moments before bumping into a SUV, then slid down onto its tow bar. Despite only minor dings being evident on either car, the ute then lost all its gears, while the SUV started having battery issues.

There was still lots of head-scratching as the Chook hoofed it back across the bridge, but it was nice to see there were no injuries. The irony wasn’t lost on many that the “carmageddon” predicted for the old traffic bridge’s closure didn’t rear its head until just a fortnight before the new extra-dosed version is set to open. Photos by Steve Grant