Another Bridge Basher.
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...herts-24608139

Definately wouldn,t try for driver of the year competition.He wants stuffing with the business end of a rag mans trumpet.

I know that bridge (I used to live in Harpenden) and my son lives in St Albans and I regularly take the 321 bus to and from Luton which uses that route.

When I saw your heading Dingbat, I thought you meant this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24602826

Missed that one Coastie.Cheer,s.

You're welcome!

With the two buses that I was called out to that had gone under bridges, both drivers were running back empty at the end of their duty, both drivers were off route taking a short cut that they had regularly used when they were driving a single deck bus. Most drivers have at some time been guilty of driving on auto-pilot I think, especially on roads that they use every day and that is what happened in these two accidents. Basically the drivers knew the roads but forgot what vehicle they were driving at the time, it's very easily done.

Mea culpa - wrong bridge - the 321 bus doesn't use this route - it's another bridge in Walkers Road.

Station Road railway bridge (the crash bridge):-
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=sta...=12,39.84,,0,0


Another report:- http://www.stalbansreview.co.uk/news...way_bus_crash/

On auto pilot or just not professionaly aware of what is going on around him, unprofessional observation. I.E. not reading signs ,the road etc.

My first thought was that the driver probably regularly drives single deckers. Imo reading the signs and being aware of surroundings important as that is wouldn't be relevant if your mind set at the time was in the wrong vehicle . Driver returning to depot empty, regularly using single deck vehicle, mind set dis engaged, possibly thinking of other things, auto pilot, I could visualise that.
Not very professional, but understandable.

As a bus engineer I often worked anything up to 25 days without a break, coming off late shift at 01.30 and going back to start early shift at 05.30 with just a few hours sleep. Some times I would sit on the end of the bed after an hour of so of sleep and try to remember if I was supposed to be getting up to go to work or if I had just finished. Once or twice when driving home in the early hours I tried to drive my manual transmission car like an automatic, wondering why it was stalling as I drove round corners in top gear - this was after spending the night moving and shunting auto box buses. It was very common to do what was known as a 'double ' that's an early shift followed by a middle shift, staring at 05.30 and finishing at 22.30, then back the next morning to start all over again again. So yes I must admit to driving on auto some times, both in a bus as well as a car, but with a mortgage and bills to pay - extra money earned with overtime was always needed.