UNSAFE BRIDGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 56, 7 March 1921, Page 4

UNSAFE BRIDGES.

Some of the circumstances surrounding Saturday's fatal accident were such that although the whole affair will no dotrbt be thoroughly investigated officially, we feel we ought to draw attention t,o them. Here is an old bridge on a public road that collapses under a weight that is not heavy as trallic goes in tlmse days. The County Engineer id reported as admitting that tho bridge was not. fit for the loads [>ut on it, but no notice was erected '.Yarning people of the risk. The engineer explains that this was not a main road, that the bridge was left standing for the convenience of a few local p»ople; that a first-elasK route had been provided by another road; that the county bylaws lix a limit for loads, b.-yond whirl] an application to the council is necessary, and that as regards Saturday's traffic there was no application to the council under the by-laws. Speaking from the layman's pointof view, we should say tint the position here revealed is extraordinary. The probability, amounting nrnetM'nlly t-o a certainty, that motors, including heavy vehicles", would cross this bridge, was known befurebai'.d, yet in> nolle was placed th» « teeing people of the risk. It is quite a common thing to see in various parts of New Zealand notices on bridges stating the limit of the load allowed on them, and we have no doubt that the County (ouncil will lx' called upon to explain why something of this kind was not .lone In the meantime local bodies would do well to look to- their old bridges, and not wait either for tbo result of the inquiry into Saturday's occurrence, or a repetition nf the accident.