Driverless pods lorry shatters glass on Coventry bridge

BBC Cleaning up after the accidentBBC
Panels were smashed when the lorry hit the Millennium Bridge shortly before 17:00 BST

A lorry collecting driverless vehicles shattered glass panels when it hit a pedestrian bridge.

The crash followed a day of trials of the unmanned pods in Millennium Place, outside Coventry's Transport Museum.

RDM Group, which makes the vehicles said "it was just one of those things", after a day of "positive" testing for the pods.

The city council said the Millennium Bridge has been inspected and deemed safe for public use.

It added it is "liaising" with RDM Group over repairs.

The bridge links Millennium Place to Lady Herbert's Garden and was opened as part of the Phoenix Initiative of Regeneration in 2004.

Miles Garner, sales and marketing manager at RDM Group, said: "To be honest, it was a good day, it was all going absolutely positively, there was a little incident at the end of the day."

The autonomous pods, manufactured by the Coventry firm, were being shown-off alongside other vehicles as part of the UK Autodrive project.

A full report on how they performed will be released on Wednesday.

The lorry which hit the bridge
Coventry City Council said it is "liaising" with RDM Group over repairs