NETWORK RAIL has blamed drivers following satellite navigation (satnav) instructions down narrow roads for a surge in damage to bridges and crossings.

According to the company’s research, lorries have caused £15m-worth of damage in the past year by striking low or narrow bridges after being directed under them by their in-cab systems.

There have been several incidents, meanwhile, of cars turning down railway tracks on level crossings after mistaking them for the roads just past the crossing that their satnavs have told them to take. This has led to several near-misses.

The railway infrastructure company said the number of bridges hit by lorries travelling on inappropriate roads had doubled in the last decade to 2,000 a year.

Bridge strikes alone cost the industry £15m a year and are responsible for a third of a million minutes of delays annually, a spokesman said.

Trains must be slowed down or diverted around each struck bridge until it has been inspected.

Network Rail is now mapping low bridges and level crossings with the Highways Agency and is in discussions with satnav manufacturers to load the data onto the devices so drivers can avoid the hazards.

“We have 21,000 miles of railway in the UK and often it interfaces with the road network and sometimes we have problems where road vehicles hit bridges or turn down level crossings when they shouldn’t do,” said the Network Rail spokesman on BBC Radio Five Live.

“With just bridge strikes we reckon it causes £15m worth of cost to the railway industry and that is about a third of a million of delay minutes a year.

“We have noticed a big increase in the number of road vehicles hitting bridges in the last few years. Over the last decade it has doubled to 2,000 incidents a year.

“Satnavs are a great tool but they are just a tool and not an alternative for keeping your wits about you and obeying the road.”

“Bridge strikes are very disruptive because each time we have to send a structural engineer out to check the structure and repair any damage caused,” she said.

“We would either have to run trains slower over the bridge or not at all, and that results in delays.

“It is very frustrating because some of these drivers are just following their satnav blindly. You would not think that you would turn onto the tracks on a level crossing if you were told to, but some people do.”

Last month, a student in his twenties stopped trains for more than an hour when his satnav told him to turn right ten yards after a level crossing.

He mistakenly turned slightly early and headed down the track as a train was approaching near Lowestoft, Suffolk. His car’s front wheels became wedged behind sleepers but the train managed to stop in time.

A contract worker had an even luckier escape near Newquay, Cornwall, in June 2007 when one of the gadgets directed him onto an ungated rail crossing on an unclassified road.

As the 38-year-old drove over the tracks a passing train ploughed into the car, but the man survived.

In the same month Suffolk county council had to put signs either side of a railway bridge that was only 8ft high after lorries kept getting stuck under it. Some satnav systems were showing it as a level crossing.

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