[Sussex] Bus hits Bridge

[Lyndhurst 14]

One of the road resurfacing contractors I worked with at Gatwick told me they do a lot of work for local councils in Sussex.

They are always supposed to check the available height during and after the work to make sure it hasn't been compromised. If you are laying 3 inches of surfacing you need to remove that same amount. Sometimes that doesn't happen and the height may be reduced, perhaps only by an inch but that can be enough if the gap between the bus and bridge was already borderline. After some crashes the height was checked and found to be slightly less than the advertised height.

 

[Official Old Man]

For those who don't know this road, there is a sharp L bend just beyond the bridge. For the bus to get so far under the bridge looks like he may have been going a bit too fast, thus showing he didn't know the road.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

A lot of the time it's down to complacent drivers and diversions. Causes a right pain in the arse for Network Rail as they have to make compensation payments to train operators if they're not able to run services and claiming the money back off the perpetrators is more lengthy/complicated than it should be to my knowledge.

As I understand, one of the issues is that if a driver strikes a bridge, they are meant to call Network Rail immediately to let them know. Unfortunately, if you've hit a bridge, it probably means that you either didn't know the height of your vehicle or disregarded the signs, both of which are against all sorts of rules/laws. As a result unless the lorry is stuck you're very heavily incentivised to drive away without telling them.

A few years ago I was looking at the statistics for this (for work, not because I'm a weirdo), it's interesting how much change there is at the top of the list of bridges with the most strikes per year. Partly because they tend to put signs and other protection up after the bridge has been hit, and partly it frequently results from diversions. There's also a good amount of randomness to it - sometimes something will be hit twice in a week when it's not happened before for years.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

One of the road resurfacing contractors I worked with at Gatwick told me they do a lot of work for local councils in Sussex.

They are always supposed to check the available height during and after the work to make sure it hasn't been compromised. If you are laying 3 inches of surfacing you need to remove that same amount. Sometimes that doesn't happen and the height may be reduced, perhaps only by an inch but that can be enough if the gap between the bus and bridge was already borderline. After some crashes the height was checked and found to be slightly less than the advertised height.

When looking at the databases for this sort of thing it's always amusing a) how many soffit heights simply aren't recorded, and b) how many have been listed in units which are completely ambiguous. Within the space of 10 entries there might be a 6.5, 6500 and 6.6, and those could all mean the same thing, vary by about an inch, or about 3metres.

 

[studio150]

Not just a local issue

 

[Greg Bobkin]

Not sure how much has changed since, but here's some more blurb about bridge strikes, written back in 2017 – if anyone's interested...

'Mark Wheel, a senior engineer at Network Rail, spoke about the issue of bridge strikes and the knock-on effects that they have on traffic (both on road and on train tracks). Giving some statistics about vehicle impacts on bridges, Wheel said he believed they need more attention by the industry than they are currently given, adding he was keen to explore the development of a sustainable approach to bridge strike prevention.
Totalling some 1,800 a year, bridge strikes represent a major safety issue, the audience was told, affecting underline and overlain bridges and costing Network Rail nearly £13m a year in compensation. “Based on some recent calculations that adding in the cost of damage to vehicles, the road network and safety vehicles, it comes to a cost of around £23m to UK plc,” Wheel admitted.
So what can be done? One proposed answer is to change the behaviours of coach, bus and freight logistics drivers and operators through safe movements and a reduction in frequency. Wheel’s proposal covered the four Es: Education (of drivers and operators, MPs and decision makers and the insurance industry); engineering (improved traffic signs, a national bridge strike initiative and the removal of driver distractions); enablement (route planning tools, truckers’ atlas and increased use and improvement of navigation and telematics systems); enforcement (through the police and courts as well as the DVSA and traffic commissioners).'

 

[Wrong-Direction]

What have we learnt from this?
Don't sit on the top deck I imagine

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[Barrow Boy]

I think this sort of thing justifies why train drivers get paid so much more than bus drivers. You never hear about trains getting stuck under bridges, do you?

Oops!

 

[rippleman]

All PSVs I have seen have the height and width of the vehicle in the driver's cab and easily visible. Bridges always have the height on a sign on the bridge (and sometimes on signs before the bridge as well).

If a driver is too lazy or incompetent to work it out for themeselves, they should have their PSV licence taken away - forever. No excuse.

 

[dazzer6666]

I live a few hundred yards away....my neighbour was out for an early morning walk and thinks he heard the crash. It was a small rented box van that hit it last week..................slightly more understandable than a bus driver doing it perhaps but maybe the bus driver was avoiding something. It's a pretty nasty bend coming from either direction, vehicles coming from HH travelling south are liable to find something in the middle of the road going North to avoid the sides of the bridge, and coming at it from the south the bridge isn't visible until you're almost under it.

 

[VAL1850]

That bus now just the right condition to be used for park and ride next season....

 

[dazzer6666]

That bus now just the right condition to be used for park and ride next season....

End of season 'we are staying up' parade through B&H ?

 

[Billy the Fish]

People always go too fast round that bend.

Really pisses me off when I'm going slowly because I know the road and don't want a head on with a bus and the c**t behind gets all aggy because I'm not pretending to be Colin McRae.

 

[Boys 9d]

The so called Canopener Bridge in America which averaged an incident a month even with prominent signage and a later adjustment of the height. Some CCTV footage.

https://11foot8.com

 

[surrey jim]

I think this sort of thing justifies why train drivers get paid so much more than bus drivers. You never hear about trains getting stuck under bridges, do you?

https://fordauthority.com/2020/09/f...mashes-into-bridge-causes-2m-in-damage-video/

You don't see that often.

In regards to todays accident, I'm told by a friend in the know, that the usual route for 272 is along past Fox Hill, past the Renault dealership in Wivelsfield Green then right into Burgess Hill on Janes Lane. Due to the long term road closure at Wivelsfield there is a diversion taking the busses along A272 just before you get into Fox Hill. The route then goes along Isaccs lane into Burgess Hill. The Rocky Lane starts on the roundabout before Isaccs Lane and is signposted Bugess Hill, apparently the driver, saw this and took that road in error.

 

[Barry Izbak]

Woman passenger in hospital from this morning's accident.

 

[DarrenFreemansPerm]

And Kingston Lane, Shoreham last week .... the roof of a bus was sliced off.

Often seems to be when out of service, a driver nonchalantly taking a route of their choosing, disregarding company instructions.

Bit off topic but am I right in thinking one side of Kingston Lane is Southwick and the other side is Shoreham?

 

[Knocky's Nose]

You never hear about trains getting stuck under bridges, do you?

Not often though..

 

[Weststander]

Bit off topic but am I right in thinking one side of Kingston Lane is Southwick and the other side is Shoreham?

I think that's right, frontier land..

 

[Baker lite]

It's easily done, bus / truck drivers that drive a variety of vehicles, do forget height / width / weight, and shit happens.
There's a low rail bridge up here in South Ruislip, with dents from vehicle hits, what doesn't help is the over height warning sign regularly flashes, even though there is no large vehicle in the area.

Wouldn’t happen on the Tube [emoji6]


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