A LORRY driver from Downend who crashed into an overhead gantry on the M5 has been banned from driving for a year.
Anthony Baker was convicted of dangerous driving by a jury after a two-day trial at Bristol Crown Court in June.
In August he returned to the court for sentencing.
In addition to the ban, the 48-year-old driver, of Garnett Place, was told to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work in the community over the next 12 months, and pay a £114 victim surcharge.
Baker had driven a 32-tonne lorry tipper truck from a construction site onto the motorway near Cribbs Causeway on March 2 last year, without noticing that the truck bed was raised.
After it hit the gantry on the southbound carriageway between Cribbs Causeway and Avonmouth, the truck bed came off the lorry and was left wedged in the gantry, knocking one of the traffic matrix signs off.
The motorway was closed for about 14 hours due to concerns the gantry, which carried digital speed limit and information signs, could collapse. It was later demolished.
Baker had denied the dangerous driving charge, although he had admitted a lesser charge of careless driving.
During the trial the jury had heard that the truck was not fitted with an alarm to alert a driver that the bed was still raised, and Baker had not checked either through his rear window or using his mirrors to see whether it was down.
The truck did not have an alarm to warn drivers that the rear was raised, although Baker’s employer, GTI Transport, had since fitted them to all of its vehicles.
Police said that in an interview Baker, of Garnett Place, told officers he did not usually check the lorry bed had lowered after making a delivery “but in hindsight stated he should have”.
The jury viewed CCTV and dashcam clips showing the lorry being driven with the truck bed raised along Highwood Lane and the southbound M5 before the collision.
The BBC reported that the sentencing hearing was told by Baker’s representatives that he felt “utterly ashamed” by the incident and was a decent, hard-working man who had been overwhelmed by the aftermath.
Sentencing him, Judge Julian Lambert said Baker had missed an “obvious” hazard, adding: “The consequences could have been catastrophic.”