01.01.2011

Sign bashing

A photo sent to us from Slovakia shows a truck mounted lift that has collided with an overhead sign. He was not sure exactly when it happened but we do know now that it occurred in Bratislava.
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Too high too fast

The accident looks like a clear case of bridge bashing- except it’s a sign. The vehicle must have been travelling at quite a pace to have lifted the wheels clear of the road.

If you know what happened here and when, please do send it in to any of our contact addresses.

UPDATE

A reader from Slovakia has responded filling in the details which make interesting and constructive reading.

"The accident happened on 21st November on Pristavny Most in Bratislava. Pristavny Most means Port Bridge, which is a Bridge over the container/barge port on the river Danube. You can actually see some of the Port Cranes in the background."

"The old truck mount, a standard issue former Communist built machine, was owned and operated by the NDS which is actually the National Road Maintenance company. They were using the machine to clean traffic cameras, the operator said that he had done it many times before, going up and down to and from each camera, and then moving on to the next one. On this occasion, for some reason, he forgot to lower the main boom, and started to drive off, catching the overhead sign."

"It is amazing that he managed to get both axles off of the road. However, those machines are of a very heavy and strong construction and I would say a combination of the angle he caught the sign frame at, and the weight of the machine going past its centre of gravity was enough to cause it to go back on the chassis. There are still large numbers of these very old truck mounts in Slovakia."
"The incident caused a few chain-reaction crashes in the oncoming traffic, although nobody collided with the truck mount, and nobody was injured."