Why do lorries still keep hitting railway bridges?

For rail passengers, it can be galling to hear or read that your train has been delayed, putting your journey, your day, back into a land of uncertainty.

That is the obvious consequence when a vehicle, especially a lorry, hits a bridge carrying the service in question. It can lead to days of disruption, gridlocked roads - and also cost millions of pounds to fix.

Bridge strikes, as Network Rail calls them, have been factor for decades and, recently, one caused major disruption in Warwickshire, delaying trains across the country while engineers checked the structure was safe.

But why do they keep happening?

Between April 2024 and March 2025 there were 1,666 reported bridge strikes across the country's rail network, according to Network Rail, with crashes costing the operator about £23m a year in repairs.

For Mike Craney, who has spent more than two decades driving lorries, such strikes are frustrating because, he believes, they should easily be avoided.

The experienced driver, from Birmingham, who now lives in Cannock, Staffordshire, still remembers the moment, shortly after passing his test, when he almost became a statistic himself.

Craney, 52, said: "I'd just passed my test and I was told to follow another driver to a site.

"It suddenly dawned on me his trailer wasn't as high as mine. We got about 600 yards from the bridge and I thought, 'I'm not sure about this.'

"The bridge was about a foot lower than my trailer."

Rather than risk it, he stopped, put on his hazard lights and spent nearly an hour reversing half a mile before finding another route.

"I upset everybody," he said. "But nobody remembers that. If I'd hit that bridge, everyone would still remember it today."

More than two decades later, Craney said he still refused to rely solely on technology.

"I've actually pulled off at the side of the road before a bridge just to double-check I'm the right height," he said.

"But nowadays drivers are taking risks too much. You should still stop before the bridge and think 'something's not right here.'"

Craney also believed standards have dropped since plans were made to encourage more new drivers on to the road by freeing up to 50,000 HGV test slots in 2021.

"It was made that easy to get a licence, you could do it while you were doing the gardening," he claimed.

Figures released by Network Rail last year revealed that vehicles hitting bridges caused more than 120 days - or 186,384 minutes - of delays for rail passengers over a year.

Over the five years between 2020 and 2025, there were a total of 8,300 strikes across the country.

To tackle the problem, the organisation said it had been working with a risk-management specialist to trial a pioneering remote monitoring system at Harlaxton Road bridge in Grantham, Lincolnshire, one of Britain's most frequently struck structures.

Research from Network Rail found more than two in five lorry drivers admitted they had not measured their vehicle before setting off, while just over half said they did not consider low bridges when planning their route.

The Road Haulage Association said bridge strikes could not just be blamed on poor driving.

Geraint Davies, from the association and a former haulage operator of 22 years, said many crashes came down to "human factors".

"We've had drivers who've gone through formal training, who've got height indicators in the cab, and yet they still hit bridges," he said.

"It comes back to fatigue, medical issues, eyesight and making sure drivers are properly trained on the specific vehicle they're driving."

Davies said other factors included drivers relying on car sat-navs, unsuitable diversion routes and, in some cases, motorists deciding to "take a chance".

"Driver training must be front and centre," he said.

"Drivers also need to understand the consequences because a bridge strike can jeopardise their own career, the business they work for and other people's livelihoods."

David Wymer, a retired civil engineer from near Wolverhampton, who worked on bridge strikes across Staffordshire, said strikes were often likely caused by human error, but he believed there could be other contributing factors.

"Sometimes loads move during the journey, sometimes vehicles haven't been measured correctly, and sometimes bridges could be marked incorrectly," he said.

"It's a bigger issue for Network Rail than anyone else."

Wymer said the damage caused by a crash could extend far beyond what was visible.

"I got involved in one where an excavator on the back of a lorry hit a precast concrete bridge on the A50 in Stoke," he said.

"I couldn't believe the effect it had on the concrete. It just disintegrates. You can crumble it in your fingers - it almost turns to dust."

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