M 20 bridge cpllapse

Yes perhaps the driver will remember next time not to travel along the hard shoulder to far when he is carrying a large Digger on his lorry ,the motorway won't be opened until Sunday

 

Something smells a bit to me though - there isn't much damage to the digger for a start, and surely it would take less force to break the straps/chains holding the digger onto the bed of the lorry than it would to fracture the deck of a bridge?

One thing is for sure, I reckon the lorry driver will be looking for employment.

 

Warning!! - Conspiracy theory:-

I listened to someone on the radio who phoned in to the programme and said that they had looked at an older Google Earth map and it showed a crack in the bridge. Don't know whether it's true.

 

Local authorities have a duty to inspect all their properties and public constructions.

Depending on the type of road and the type of local authority, there is a different authority for each type of road structure.

Local roads - local authority, and depending on the structure on the road it may be their responsibility also.

Larger and some main roads - county authority

National roads - The Highways Agency

 

I still say that something isn't right here - the overall height of the lorry bed and digger arm doesn't look to be unusual, and the only evidence of impact is some concrete dust on the leading edge of the arm. If the impact was sufficient to bring a bridge down, surely you would expect more damage to the digger? Notably, the lorry driver has not been arrested.

It does look as though the lorry was driving in the hard shoulder - is this section of the M20 one of those that are so called smart motorways? If not, why was he in the hard shoulder?

I agree with the sentiment that the bridge had a crack - after all, it did have hoardings/barriers up that suggest that it was being worked on. There must be hundreds of bridges in the UK that are in a pretty bad state - anyone travelling along the A4 in West London can see the equipment that has been installed to monitor movement and to run drying equipment that has been fitted to the M4 elevated section; and it is not an isolated case either - Hammersmith Flyover being another prime example. Putney Bridge was closed for months last year because inspections (instigated out of the panic that ensued after Hammersmith Flyover was found to be heading for collapse), Chiswick Bridge also underwent months of renovations as it too wasn't great; Hammersmith Bridge was due to be refurbished this year, but that was put off when an inspection revealed that Kew Bridge was rotten as a pear, and that is currently undergoing refurbishment works.

You only need to look at the state of the roads in this country to see what a state our infrastructure is in.

 

Well, a quick look at Google Street View images from October last year show the hoardings in place, and a ruddy great crack in the middle of the bridge deck.











EDIT - Look at the shape of the crack/joint, and then look at this:

 

Although it seems as there's a crack in the footbridge I'd be inclined to check out some of the other footbridges to see whether there is the same pattern there.

It could be that they are made in sections with those being the joints. I know they're made in sections.

The picture of it on the ground makes it appear as though the part running vertically up from the ground is a smoothed off section. This is likely to indicate that it was built like that. The L shape above also makes it look as though it's made to rest on another section.