Major bridge collapse in Baltimore

There’s a bridge in my old neighborhood that’s got such a low clearance that trucks hit it literally all the time. Like, every few weeks.



There’s also a bridge right behind the basketball arena at Villanova where the same thing used to happen all the time.

 

You would think there would be a special "mapquest" for truckers that would give you the best route given the height of your load. I know a lot of truckers who have only started in the last 10 years (and there are a lot of them) just use Google Maps or something. They don't realize that "truck route" isn't a suggestion.

 

Maybe folks were better drivers back then.

 

And for ungated railroad grade crossings. That's not just a truck issue.

Interestingly, fleet operators keep tabs on their drivers' every moves via GPS and long haul truckers are required to have electronic logging devices in the truck to monitor hours of service. But bridges? Fukc that.

 

Charlottesville has one of those right in the middle of the main off-campus bar strip.

 

A bus driver told me once that the commercial grade GPSs actually direct trucks etc around where they can’t go, but if someone pinches pennies and buys a standard one, that’s the folks who get into trouble.

 

There is one of these on the north shore of Pittsburgh near Heinz Field. I used to work in a building that overlooked it and I saw the top of a U-Haul get completely sheared off one day.

 

The bridges over Storrow Drive in Boston are run into so often by trucks it's a tradition, as it usually happens with the new influx of college students each Labor Day weekend. Junior or Dad from parts west and south are at the wheel of a U-Haul, don't see or ignore the warning signs, and bam, the top of the truck is peeled off and the State Police and Boston cops have a new reason to dream of making pensionable age.

 

qed

 

There's a railroad bridge just north of Syracuse that claims a victim so often that officials have literally tried everything to keep trucks from using that road, going on decades. Nothing seems to work, because a truck seems to get stuck under it just about once per month. It's become something of a meme in the Cuse. Happened just yesterday:

 

There is a road parallel to 95 in CT called the Merritt Parkway. It seems a truck gets caught on that road all the time. The bridges are too low for big rigs and it will shear the top right off.

 

In Boston, Storrow has become a verb. This makes me very happy.