The New Plymouth District Council is calling out truck and tractor drivers who they say are trying to save time by taking short cuts, saying they are costing ratepayers $150,000 a year and making roads dangerous.

NPDC said some Taranaki landmarks such as the Bertrand Road Bridge are being damaged by drivers forcing oversized vehicles through them.

“This sort of damage makes these roads dangerous for other drivers and costs ratepayers about $150,000 a year to fix,” said NPDC transport manager Rui Leitao.

“We’ve spent $60,000 alone fixing the UrutÄ Tunnel over the last two years. The repair work also holds up other traffic. And the really frustrating thing is that it’s all totally avoidable,” he said.

“We work with trucking companies to steer drivers to use navigation apps designed especially to take big vehicles over suitable roads, but too often we see them relying on standard GPS or just chancing a shortcut.

“We suspect some drivers have even climbed on top of their cabins to move height restriction signs at tunnel entrances and in 2014 a big truck actually got stuck in the UrutÄ Tunnel.”