Police and public transport authorities have described the inconvenience caused when truck drivers flaunt clearance heights and get their vehicles lodged underneath bridges.
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Their comments come after a truck driver failed to negotiate Kangaroo Flat’s Chapel Street railway bridge on Sunday evening, an incident that required police to temporarily divert traffic.
The crash also left commuters on a Bendigo-bound V/Line service from Melbourne stranded until V/Line maintenance workers gave the bridge the all-clear.
It is the second time the Bendigo Advertiser has reported a truck stuck under the overpass since June.
Over-sized vehicles have previously been wedged under the Laurel Street bridge in Golden Square too.
Sergeant Mick McCrann from the Bendigo highway patrol said it was human error, not environmental factors, that resulted in vehicles needing extrication from the Chapel Street site.
“It is clearly signed, visible, short and a straight length of road,” he said, explaining it was drivers’ job to “just look up” at read road safety signs.
The Chapel Street bridge bears signs that list its clearance height at between 2.8 and 3.4 metres.
In the “worst case scenario”, roads would have to be closed and the bridge braced and repaired, he said.
Police can issue $793 fines for failing to obey a low clearance or clearance sign.
A spokeswoman for public transport provider V/Line said all bridge strikes on their network were attended by a civil maintenance team who assessed damage. The Chapel Street bridge was not damaged in Sunday’s crash.
“Safety is our number one priority so train services will always be stopped following reports of a bridge strike and will only resume running, once our crews have assessed the damage and deemed it is safe to do so,” the V/Line spokeswoman said.
Fairfax Media reported this week a Ballarat bus company whose driver failed to clear Melbourne’s Montague Street bridge last year, an incident that caused injuries to 11 passengers, could be fined up to $1.5 million when it fronts the Magistrates Court later in the month.
But a TSV spokeswoman said incidents like those in Kangaroo Flat do not come under its jurisdiction, unless it involved a passenger vehicle, like a bus.
Mark Kearney
Journalist. Traveller. Pop culture connoisseur. Mark is passionate about education, the arts and social justice, especially stories affecting the LGBTI community.
Journalist. Traveller. Pop culture connoisseur. Mark is passionate about education, the arts and social justice, especially stories affecting the LGBTI community.
