the essential
A utility vehicle hit the Avenue des Herbettes bridge, in the Montaudran district, this Monday. In the direction in which it was traveling, the template gantry was removed. Only two signs warned him of the height under the structure.
Virtually nothing remains of the accident. Only slight traces of friction on the concrete parapet are still visible. This Monday, a truck crashed on the Avenue des Herbettes bridge, which supports the SNCF track which runs towards Aude and the Mediterranean. “The roof of the vehicle was smashed. This kind of shock is unforgivable. I don’t know how fast the driver was going…” says Maurice, a resident. A municipal police crew had to regulate traffic while a tow truck intervened.
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According to the resident, the driver of the utility vehicle must not have “realized the height of his machine”. “The last time I saw an accident like this under this bridge was 10 years ago,” assures the resident. For Malik, a gardener who works in the Montaudran district, there are “problems there all the time”. “This morning again, a truck turned back in front of the obstacle. It’s not the first and it’s not the last. There is a signaling problem,” he says.
Why did the portico disappear?
In one direction, only two small round signs warn of the height under the Avenue des Herbettes bridge. Two meters and fifty centimeters. In the other, a gauge gantry allows drivers of large vehicles to know if their vehicle respects the maximum height authorized to overcome the obstacle. In this case, the driver of the accident truck had not used this device. He was on the other side.
“There was road improvement work for a little over a year. It ended six or seven months ago. Before that, there was a height-limiting gantry. It has disappeared. I think that if he had still been there, there would have been no clash,” says Maëlis, who has lived in Montaudran for a few months.
The Toulouse town hall explains that the withdrawal of this device is due to another reason: “This bridge, which belongs to the SNCF, is preceded by a gauge limitation portal warning drivers of high vehicles (trucks, motorhomes ) between the bridge and avenue Lespinet This was destroyed during a previous disaster. The replacement is ordered and scheduled for the beginning of November. , from the entrance to avenue des Herbettes, from avenue de Lespinet, a sign indicates the size limitation.”
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