The driver of a truck carrying heavy machinery that stopped just short of hitting the underside of Aldo Moro footbridge three days ago broke the law as he was not accompanied by an official escort, Transport Malta said yesterday.

Heavy and large vehicles that surpass the limits set by law need to be escorted by a traffic policeman or a Transport Malta official and failure to do so could prompt legal action.

“In the circumstances, the vehicle was in direct contravention of the stated regulation,” the regulator said, basing itself on pictures of the incident that appeared in the media.

Sources said efforts were now being made to identify the vehicle and driver so that legal action could be instituted.

The escort is meant to guide the drivers through the roads to ensure, for example, that certain areas limited in height or width are avoided. But it was clear that the driver in question had not taken such precautions on Tuesday when he stopped just centimetres short of the footbridge in the busy Marsa road after he realised at the last moment his load was not going to make it underneath.

A similar heavy vehicle that crashed into the same bridge in April caused traffic chaos as Transport Malta officials had to seal off the lanes so that the structure could be made safe. It is taking legal action against a driver and three other people over that incident.

On Tuesday, however, with the help of a traffic warden who was passing by, the driver managed to reverse into a side road to make way for the accumulating traffic.

Transport Malta pointed out that the footbridge had a “clear headroom” of five metres and there were signs of the height limit in both carriageways.

The height limit is four metres and any vehicle “carrying goods that exceed this limit must be accompanied either by traffic police or Transport Malta officials,” Transport Malta said.

There were no plans at present to raise the level of the footbridge “as it conforms to international standards”, the authority said when asked.

In a similar incident last month, a trailer transporting a container just missed hitting the footbridge when the driver realised just in time he was not going to clear it.