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Halfords... we fit... erm, no you dont matey

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I want to see how they get that out!

Reply to
Tim Watts

Let the air out of the suspension and the most of the air out of the tyres, giving them a foot or so of clearance, then gently move off, re-inflating the tyres and suspension when clear of the bridge. He may have to reverse out, depending on exactly how the body's deformed.

Close road as well as railway line until the structural engineers have checked the bridge for structural integrity and movement.

The body will be temporarily held together with a few ratchet straps until it gets to the nearest repair shop, usually at walking pace under escort. The driver will get prosecuted for at least driving without due care and attention, and may lose his job, depending on his previous record.

Reply to
John Williamson

In article , Gazz writes

That will cost their insurers a bob or two.

Reply to
fred

Fascinating - how do you know all this :-)

Reply to
Tim Watts

On 06/10/2014 20:41, John Williamson wrote: ...

A couple of local railway bridges have very solid steel beams fitted on separate frames each side of them. If an overheight vehicle tries to go through the bridge, they hit the steel beams, not the bridge, thus avoiding delaying rail traffic.

Reply to
Nightjar

Because I used to work in vehicle recovery. HTH. ;-)

Reply to
John Williamson

You must have some tales to tell! :)

Reply to
Tim Watts

Not the first time this sort of thing has happened of cours. However with modern tech one cannot help but wonder why alarms for this sort of thing are not commonplace saving damage and red faces. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

london-9777854.html

There's a bridge round here that's almost irresistable to truck drivers!

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Reply to
R D S

Nope: it will cost the other policy holders of their insurance company a bob or two...

Reply to
Allan

Cost. ISTR reading of one being installed to protect a bridge that has been hit a number of times that cost over £50,000; and that is just for one bridge. There is also the question of whether a driver who has ignored a low bridge warning sign when entering the stretch of road leading to the bridge, ignored another close to the bridge and missed the signs on the bridge itself is going to be deterred from driving on by another warning sign.

I like the simplicity of the system I have already mentioned - putting big steel barriers ahead of the bridge, so the lorries hit those and don't damage the bridge.

Reply to
Nightjar

Let the tyres down.

Reply to
F

My mate is a fire fighter at the Beckenham station. I'll ask him. Probably the most exciting thing that's ever happened in that neck of the woods

Reply to
stuart noble

ISTR the Dartford Tunnel having dangly bits of metal at a certain height, fifty yards or so from the tunnel entrance. Seemed a practical and low- cost idea to me.

Reply to
Scion

An alarm won't work because:

The alarm would be in the tractor unit, which fitted under the bridge nicely. :)

The Mk.2 version would take into account the height of the trailer, but drivers would forget to set it.

The Mk.3 version would sound an annoying alarm if the driver forgets to set it, but the haulage company will employ deaf drivers.

Reply to
GB

london-9777854.html

Ha ha,

In Redditch, there's a road under a bridge that goes *up*hill slightly. The road layout is such that people who blindly follow satnav will happily go straight on up the road instead of veering left onto the bypass (which is what the bridge is carrying).

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Once you were wedged under it, reversing (or trying to only made things worse. The best thing was once wedged, it made quite a few buildings inaccessible by car. I saw 4 vans stuck there. One time a copper called to the scene got a bit flustered with people filming the scene, ignoring the plethora of CCTV installations in the area.

Surely a frame with dangling chains would save a few incidents ?

Reply to
Jethro_uk

Many years ago, I was walking under a bridge when this happened. In that case, the rear trailer just collapsed completely flat and the rear doors fell off. I was away at a meeting - it was probably Athens, but I can't recall for sure now. I took some pictures but that was before digital cameras.

I've been delayed on Southwest Trains a few times due to a lorry hitting a bridge, and all trains having to queue up to cross the bridge at 5MPH.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Sometime in the late 1980's I think it must have been, a large skip truck on the A1 went under the Rawley Lane bridge at Borehamwood, and its boom hit the underside of the bridge and jammed the truck solid between the bridge and the road. It had lifted and moved the concrete bridge. The bridge was closed for ages after that, although they had the A1 cleared much more quickly. That was one of my occasional routes to a secondary office at the time.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Most of the ones I know have dangling things 10m ahead of the bridge and on *both* sides of the road. It doesn't entirely stop crunches but it usually means that they hit the bridge with less speed since the bang it makes causes them go WTF was that and apply their brakes.

The A19 Tontine bridge has never been the same since a digger on tow hit it and was crippled for several months during extensive repairs.

Do the companies whose careless haulage drivers smash up bridge infrastructure like this get charged for the repairs that are needed?

Reply to
Martin Brown

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