Hang ’em High: Manitoba to crack down on oversized trucks
WINNIPEG — After the fifth time this year that an over-height truck slammed into a bridge overpass, Manitoba’s provincial government has had enough.
According to the Winnipeg Free Press, Stan Struthers, acting minister of infrastructure and transportation, vows to table legislation that hikes penalties for drivers and their companies who overload trucks.
The Highway 9 overpass at the north Perimeter Highway will be closed for two to three months after a truck, equipped with a hydraulic crane, tried to squeeze underneath and seriously damaged a girder, the Free Press reports.
The driver was charged with driving or operating an over-height vehicle and slapped with a $249 fine.
The overpass is the first provincial bridge structure to be equipped with a $250,000 sensor device that warns drivers when their load is too tall to fit underneath. But the driver attempted to get through anyway.
In May the McPhillips Street CP Rail underpass was hit by a tractor-trailer and Perimeter Overpass was damaged by a truck carrying a backhoe.
There are several other similar incidents going to back to 2004.
— with files from the Winnipeg Free Press
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