Lauderdale roller rampage leaves trail of destruction - ABC listen

Mar 20, 2025

Residents of Lauderdale woke this morning to a trail of damage left behind by a road roller, which appears to have been stolen from a nearby construction project.

The roller crushed an Australia Post postbox, before it was driven to Lauderdale Beach where it also destroyed a boardwalk used to access the beach.

Talkback caller, James, in Lauderdale describes the scene to Leon Compton on ABC Tasmania Mornings.

Lauderdale residents woke up to find a rouge road roller on the beach.(Supplied: James Major)

JamesSo I arrived this morning on the Lauderdale beach down at the boat ramp end, the end of the canal that most people in that area would know, to find a large yellow roller that's not uncommon on civil construction sites, something around seven metres long, and you've probably seen the photograph. And I thought, well, okay, that's parked up quite well. As the other cars are, maybe the councillors are going to do some work. And then I noticed, oh, okay, there's tracks leading down onto the beach. So I followed it. And then at the end of that, were a group of people standing around a very much squashed timber stairway leading from Aragoon Street, Lauderdale, down to the beach. Chatting to the local people, it turns out that there's a high likelihood this machine was stolen locally from one of the local redevelopment sites and driven through the streets of Lauderdale either late last night or early this morning. It has also flattened the Australia Post box on Bangalore Street out the front of the local store there. So I'm not sure if there's any other damage, but that's about all I can report.

Leon ComptonRight, and then it came to rest where exactly, James?

JamesIt came to rest on the beach at Lauderdale is what I'm told. And then I'm also told that the owner then came and moved it up into that position at the car park. Obviously something like that, Leon, can't be driven on the road. So it needs to be floated with a large semi-trailer. So that would account for where it's sitting at the moment.

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