Verbs with Inanimate Subjects

Is it appropriate to use phrases such as the following in technical prose?

• The road runs south.
• The river turns to the west.

While I understand that literary texts often use such constructions, roads technically do not "run" and rivers do not "turn" since they are inanimate objects. Can these constructions be used in technical writing?

Metaphor pervades scientific language as much as it does non-technical language. See Lakoff's work, eg here.

I can't put my finger on a specific work linked to metaphors in science and technical language, but that should give you a starting point for further research.

Metaphors such as those are so well established that they will normally pass unnoticed as metaphors. Whether you use them depends on the conventions of the particular kind of technical writing, but in principle I see no reason to avoid them.