What is the council keeping a secret?, Bridge stunts Options

[notmeatloaf]

In the snow on Sunday night a lorry managed to dive off a bridge in an exciting but ultimately fairly dangerous fashion.

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/16098532....ter-lorry-crash

The council have confirmed the flyover will be closed for a third day for mysterious repairs.

I assume it must be something more difficult than resurfacing the road or putting up a temporary barrier up which you'd think, on a busy road, the council might have managed to sort out by now. Not sure if any of the knowledgeable people here want to take a punt at what it might be.

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[Foxy01]

The original article described the lorry 'hitting a pothole' which caused it to crash through the barriers.

[Fredd]

One possible explanation is that they won't want to resurface the road, particularly an exposed flyover, while the surface temperature is low as it makes it difficult to control the compaction properly.

[notmeatloaf]

Even if they wanted to properly resurface you'd think a temporary repair could have been arranged?

[122basy]

Even if they wanted to properly resurface you'd think a temporary repair could have been arranged?

Maybe the council have all got together and come up with a wizard-wheeze to mess everyone about, you know, just for a bit of fun.

[notmeatloaf]

Maybe the council have all got together and come up with a wizard-wheeze to mess everyone about, you know, just for a bit of fun.

Ah yeah sorry. I forgot you told me everyone in authority gets everything right all the time. No point questioning it, I'm sure they must be cracking along to repair ten metres of fence within the next few weeks.

[DancingDad]

Semi serious head on, I wonder if they think the bridge may have been shifted sideways as the lorry toppled.... would have been some side loading.
Less serious, them taking the pee.....
Lorry seems relatively unscathed for summat that big that has fallen that far?

[notmeatloaf]

They have opened the opposite side so I assume the structure is okay. I would have thought the fencing but it seems the same on both sides.

[jdh]

I read elsewhere that the expansion joints were failing and that was the cause of the pothole that triggered this, maybe they were damaged beyond the point where a bucket of loose tarmac would fix it.

[Raxiel]

Hard to say with the information available. No obvious shortcomings with the bridge on GSV. Possibly the vehicle restraint system anchorages were damaged, complicating their replacement.

My guess.
They wouldn't want to fix a temporary edge barrier to the deck, so anything they put in would need a working width behind it. Given the width of the existing verge, I reckon they'd be limited to one lane. Presumably someone ran the traffic numbers and decided closing both lanes and running traffic down the slips and over the roundabout was preferable to running a single lane. With it being the left hand lane, they'd either be splitting it and forcing the left hand lane down the slips anyway, or setting up a complicated (and long) cross-over, closing the right and moving it over when they got to the bridge.

I read elsewhere that the expansion joints were failing and that was the cause of the pothole that triggered this, maybe they were damaged beyond the point where a bucket of loose tarmac would fix it.

That doesn't seem likely to me. If the sub-surface drainage was blocked, that could cause a defect in the surfacing to grow into a pothole. The kerb drainage units on GSV look a bit overgrown so thats a possibility. If they drain through the joints they could be involved that way.

Does look like the north joint is leaking, although that's not the span the lorry came off.

This post has been edited by Raxiel: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 - 11:16