HGV causes damage to 100m of barriers across M6 – CoventryLive
A HGV was caught on camera veering across a busy M6 junction, tearing down a stretch of the central reservation barrier. The incident caused delays of up to 90 minutes for drivers.
The incident occurred on Tuesday, May 9 after 6am on the M6[1] northbound. The HGV took out 28 lengths of the safety barrier – spanning around 100m – between junctions 10 and 10a towards the M54.
This impacted rush hour traffic, resulting in eight miles of queues up to the Spaghetti Junction. The vehicle carried on its journey, leaving a large trail of damage which was spotted by a traffic officer on routine patrol shortly afterwards.
David Hind, from National Highways’ Network Claims team, said: “Incidents like this have a massive impact on the travelling public and the delays prove costly for the many businesses that rely on goods being transported across the country. We don’t know whether this driver was distracted for a moment or what caused the vehicle to veer across the high-speed road but the footage shows we could easily have been looking at a very serious incident and potentially loss of life.”
The damaged safety barrier on the M6 northbound (Image: National Highways)
The barrier had to be fixed quickly, which meant one lane of the motorway was closed to allow for repairs. The road was fully reopened before 11am on May 9.
Mr Hind said: “Fortunately the steel safety barrier did its job and prevented the lorry going over into the opposite carriageway but it was important that we then replaced it as quickly as possible to protect other road users. We have liaised with the police and it appears that it was not reported, the driver left the scene and left someone else to pick up the bill for this damage.
“It is important that we protect the taxpayers’ purse and would like to recoup some of the thousands of pounds spent on the repairs. So if anyone has any information about this, or any similar incidents, please do get in touch.”
Anyone with information or dash cam footage should email [email protected][3]. Emails should be marked for the attention of David Hind.
References
- ^ the M6 (www.coventrytelegraph.net)
- ^ Car collides with crash barrier on M6 (www.coventrytelegraph.net)
- ^ [email protected] (www.coventrytelegraph.net)