A driver has been banned from driving lorries for six months as a result of getting his lorry stuck under a bridge carrying the Brighton Main Line through Coulsdon in Surrey.
At about 2.30pm on 7th July this year on the A237 Brighton Road, just outside Coulsdon South station, the lorry became wedged under Stoats Nest bridge, an iron girder bridge that carries the fast lines for express trains to Gatwick Airport, Haywards Heath, and Brighton. Because of the nature of the bridge, it had to be closed until the lorry could be removed, leaving just two tracks open for the whole Brighton Main Line.
The lorry was not removed until 8.45pm, resulting in disruption to trains until the end of the day’s services from Eastbourne in the south to Bedford and Cambridge in the north.
In late November, the driver appeared before the South East Traffic Commissioner, where he received a six-month HGV driving ban. That followed an earlier appearance in court where he received a means-tested £715 fine and given six points on his licence for driving without due care and attention and contravening a traffic sign.
Network Rail’s route director for Sussex, Katie Frost, said: “Well over 400 trains and thousands of passengers from across the South were disrupted by this single error of judgement, and it brings home how important it is for professional drivers to check the heights of their lorries and their routes before setting off.
“Network Rail seeks to recover costs for incidents like this one and we work closely with the Office of the Traffic Commissioner and Metropolitan Police to tackle drivers who damage our bridges.
“The fine and the ban won’t make up for the costs of the disruption but they send a message to other drivers that it’s never worth running the risk.”
Sergeant Alex Burlison from the Commercial Vehicle Unit at the Metropolitan Police Service said: “Far too often we are deploying resources to deal with these incidents which are wholly avoidable with each collision having the potential for fatal consequences.
“These drivers are entrusted to drive some of the largest vehicles on the road and it is only right that should they be involved in a collision with infrastructure of any description that they are placed before the courts.”
Responses
Is it really not possible to suspend a plank or a pole across the road at the appropriate height so it hits the oversized vehicle before it reaches the bridge? Then it wouldn’t make any difference if the driver misses the signs.
That’s not a bad idea 👍
Ultimately it is the truck drivers responsibility to know the vehicle height and route but please do not judge until you have driven a l.g.v with all the responsibilities it entails,it can be a very difficult and demanding job with little or no help from other motorists and the constant road closures/diversions,mistakes do happen.. I’m sure all non hgv drivers are perfect and never make a mistake!
I drive a car transporter and the height and length of my vehicle changes all the time.
Your right, it is a difficult and demanding job. There’s so many things to consider and little to no margins for error.
Of course, we are trained and professional and we are expected to make examples.
But on the other hand you have too many car drivers that simply don’t understand what it’s like to sit behind the wheel of something larger than most things on the road.
Too small a fine, far too short a ‘ban’.
So how often do you see car drives using s phone? I’m in my truck with a good view down at them and i see it multiple times evrry day. But that’s ok is it? With bridges, I set the height board inside the cab of my truck to match the trailer height. I use my eyes, my big right foot, my truck satnav which i set just over the trailer height, but most important of all of all, COMMON SENSE.
Should someone that cannot read the bridge height realy be driving the vehicle in the first place ? A 6 month ban is inadequate 6 years would be more like it, Hopefully in this time they have found a job they are safe to work in ,
Whats the point of haveing height markers in the cab ? Thought the idea was to check that height? and the bridge height that you are approaching ? easy realy if the cab sign is MORE than the bridge what WANKER would try and go thriugh it ? onyl someone that UNsafe to drive that vehicle in the first place,
Easy answer Ban him and the TRANSPORT MANANGER because that idiot employed him in the first place.
My dad was a lorry driver. You p;lan your route with a map the night before and noting all the bridges. My dad never hit any and had driving for over 45 years. You would have to be pretty thick to hit a bridge or virtually blind. Lol!
Unless the trailer slopes up at back that trailer is not over 15,3 and so bridge height is incorrect
lack of a side on photo makes this hard to judge and comment (I had a quick look to see if there were other photos on the internet but no).
Some trailers have a “hump” in the middle to improve aerodynamics, and the fifth wheel height can vary a little but the driver should have known all the same.
Generally, all major railway bridges should be equipped with cameras and sensors to allow a high rate of prosecution and deter this. And more protective bars to keep major express lines open when a bash does happen.
16.4 actually
Not enough – driver & employer will shrug this off as a business cost .
Six months inside for the driver, £175,000 fine for the company. Only when penalties reach this level will drivers & owners take notice.
Consider the cost to the economy & people’s livelihoods of 400+ trains cancelled, diverted, delayed. Let’s say each person is delayed by 1 hour. At a conservative average of 200 passengers/train, then 80,000 people were affected. At a low hourly rate (to take account of students, unemployed & retired, but making no allowance for consequential loss) of, say, £20/hour per person, the driver’s damn-fool mistake cost £1.6 million.
If you add in the costs arising from disruption to road traffic, police time, Network Rail’s time, the TOCs’ time, loss of business in local shops etc, you can probably double that £1.6M.
Stop featherbedding HGV operators – it’s time to get real.
Have you considered looking at the bigger picture. All too often we have been diverted from our safe route onto a diversion clearly without any thought about high sided vehicles.
We simply cannot annoy the one track minded car drivers by stopping inappropriately to seek advice as knowledge of the local or surrounding areas may not be available to hand and the person involved in the diversion is nowhere to be seen, or simply a case of multiple closures/diversions in one area and nobody talks to each other and imformation is confusing.
Maybe if they used this so called £1.6m+ to improve the infrastructure and lower the road surfaces under bridges to accommodate HGV then we wouldn’t be in this position to start with.
Driver most likely using either phone sat nav or car based sat nav. Also didn’t know the height of his vehicle which should be clearly displayed in the vehicle. If not then should have defected the vehicle and told the operator as they have a legal responsibility to make sure there vehicles are road worthy and drivers are doing daily walk round checks.
Doesn’t say if driver lost his job or not. I’m guessing he did.