A commercial truck struck a highway overpass, again, Tuesday morning, resetting the count for days without a bridge strike in B.C.
The province made it 11 days this time, according to government data. Based on that list, Tuesday’s incident was the 15th time a commercial vehicle has hit a bridge on a highway in B.C. this year.
In the latest instance, a vehicle travelling west on Highway 1 in Langley struck a CP Rail overhead near 232nd Street.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure told CTV News the damage to the overpass is “minor and cosmetic,” and there were no impacts to the railroad.
Officials added that traffic was not impacted, and the Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement branch attended the scene to investigate.
While Tuesday’s strike appears not to have had major consequences, others this year have.
An over-height truck severely damaged the Highway 17A overpass in Delta when it struck it on July 18. The crash caused lane closures that several lasted days, and the overpass still hasn’t been repaired. The ministry said a permanent fix would take “several months” to complete.
After that strike, Transportation Minister Rob Fleming promised to raise fines for drivers that hit overpasses and take companies to court to recover the cost of repairs.
“Even though 999 out of 1,000 drivers probably do the proper things each and every day as they are moving goods around our region, it just takes one careless, negligent driver to create the kind of traffic congestion and damage to our infrastructure we saw yesterday. And that’s unacceptable,” Fleming said at the time.
In May, after a different truck smashed into a different overpass, the BC Trucking Association renewed calls on the industry to prioritize safety.
“We are calling on the customers, the drivers, the carriers who are moving these loads to stop, to measure, to make sure they know what they’re moving and to get the appropriate route planning — because this is what’s happening when you don’t,” said president Dave Earle then.
