Giant road sign falls on Melbourne car

[bothar]

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/tr ... vi-BBRZewU

[Isleworth1961]

[Euan]

Now that is one *botched* roadsign isn't it?

[sydneynick]

Here's a follow-up story from our ABC: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-13/ ... y/10711038

[Bryn666]

It would suggest, looking at how it fell, that the flanges holding the vertical sign supports to the cross-member were not strong enough and gave way.

Had previous windy weather occurred that could have weakened the joints through stress?

[sydneynick]

It would suggest, looking at how it fell, that the flanges holding the vertical sign supports to the cross-member were not strong enough and gave way.

Had previous windy weather occurred that could have weakened the joints through stress?

That seems to be what the authorities are suggesting. More from the ABC: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-16/ ... l/10712782

[J N Winkler]

I suspect a deeper cause of this incident is design criteria that are not conservative enough to ensure that a given sign structure and its fasteners never undergo enough load cycles at the stress levels encountered in normal service to experience fatigue. In the early noughties in the US, repeated failures of sign structures (especially cantilevers) as a result of wind buffeting engendered a research project to tighten design requirements.

In the US context, contractor-selected sign structure designs have been found to be more vulnerable to failure owing to their usually less conservative specs. Was this structure in Australia installed as part of a design-build contract?

[crazyknightsfan]

In the US context, contractor-selected sign structure designs have been found to be more vulnerable to failure owing to their usually less conservative specs. Was this structure in Australia installed as part of a design-build contract?

Certainly was

[Peter Freeman]

Final report -
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-23/ ... s/11238778