Excavator on lorry hits pedestrian bridge at Upper Thomson Road
Accident at Upper Thomson Road
The lorry carrying an excavator approached the overhead bridge on Tuesday morning.
As it passed beneath it, the arm of the excavator hit the bridge and scraped the bottom of it.
It sent debris from the bridge falling onto the back of the truck.
"I was shocked because it sounded like thunder," said Mr Jeffrey Tan Siew Ming, 38, who was driving behind the lorry.
"The arm of the excavator was clearly above the height limit for the bridge, but the driver made no attempt to stop."
A sign on the side of the bridge indicated the height limit to be 4.5m.
The accident happened at about 11.40am on Tuesday on Upper Thomson Road towards Lornie Road. The overhead bridge links Thomson Plaza and Bright Hill Drive.
The impact caused a chunk of the bridge to break off and left scratches underneath the bridge. It also violently shook the excavator.
The lorry, which managed to pass underneath the bridge, stopped immediately.
A video of the incident was recorded by Mr Tan's in-car camera.
According to him, the collision was so loud that vehicles within the vicinity stopped in the middle of the road.
The advertising executive called The New Paper hotline yesterday to alert us to the accident, which he felt was preventable.
BRIDGE
"If there had been pedestrians on the bridge at the time, they could have been seriously injured," he said.
"Thankfully, no one was injured in the incident."
When contacted, the company that owns the excavator, L C H Construction, would say only that there was minimal damage to the excavator and lorry and that the driver was unharmed.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said it is investigating the incident and that its contractors have been deployed to evaluate the damage and carry out the necessary repair.
An LTA spokesman said: "Those found guilty of hitting a road structure can be fined up to $5,000 and/or jailed for up to two years.
"The owner or driver of the vehicle will also have to pay for the repairs of the damaged road structure."
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