A truck driver escaped with minor injuries after being flung through his windscreen yesterday ? at same location he broke his leg three years ago while driving the same truck.

Michael Rand said he lost control of the steering by Scenic Heights Pass on Middle Road, Southampton and swerved into the opposite lane hitting a pensioner driving a saloon in the other lane.

He told : ?The steering wheel on the truck went, I have never had a problem with the steering and I had just taken it to the mechanics to get the alignment done. ?I am glad I am standing here and the other guy is all right.?

Mr. Rand, went through the windscreen and then landed on the split pane as it hit the sidewalk grass, just opposite Heron?s Nest Drive. He gashed his leg on the steering column while being flung from the cab and needed a tetanus shot but was otherwise O.K after narrowly missing the concrete part of the pavement and the stone wall. ?I could have broken my neck or something. I braced myself, I felt I had no control as I came around the corner.?

Also unhurt was his six-year-old passenger Tyquann Perinchief who was putting a brave face on the ordeal.

His relieved mother Melody Maderios said: ?It?s great he?s all right.?

Mr. Rand broke his leg and smashed his knee in March 2002 when a car, full of children, skidded into his truck on the same piece of road. That time Mr. Rand was heading west, rather than east, and had to be cut from his truck while the woman driver, who had hit him side on, also broke her leg while a pregnant front seat passenger, who was holding a tot in her lap, was also hurt. Mr. Rand, of G and M Trucking, said yesterday: ?I have no luck. I don?t think I should come this way any more. This is the second time. I will go South Shore.?

His friend Gina Flood, who lives right by the road where the truck finally came to a stop after cracking the wall, said Mr Rand was lucky to be alive to tell his bizarre tale. She came running when she heard the noise. She said: ?It was one of the loudest noises I have ever heard. I thought somebody must be dead.?

But when she got there she saw Mr. Rand on his feet trying to get Tyquann out of the truck.

The driver of the Suburu, Roderic Pearman, 68, also thought the accident would be a lot worse when he saw the truck hurtling towards him in his lane.

He said: ?It was a serious situation. I didn?t know quite what to do, whether I should go into his lane or stay in my lane ? which is what I did. I had almost stopped by the time he hit me.?

q.