Monday, October 4, 2010

Low bridge FAIL! - repeatedly!


There's a railway trestle in Durham, North Carolina, with an 11' 8" clearance to the road beneath. So many trucks and goods vehicles have hit the trestle that someone's set up an entire Web site, as well as a dedicated YouTube channel, to do nothing but document the ongoing series of accidents (recorded on a specially erected 'bridgecam'). The railway company has had to erect a crash beam on either side of the trestle itself, so that vehicles running into the bridge don't knock the railway track itself out of true.

Here's just one video from the chronicles, documenting 13 collisions with the bridge that took place in the space of - you guessed it! - 13 months.







There are many more videos of accidents at this bridge on the YouTube channel. Entertaining viewing for all except motor vehicle insurers!





Peter

5 comments:

Old NFO said...

Oops... :-) It's those pesky little details...

Anonymous said...

It seems to me I have seen some bridges with hanging warning barriers ahead of the bridge with a sign that says if you hit them, you will hit the bridge.

Down around Houston, a truck hauling a big tank went under an overpass that was too low. It knocked the big tank off the trailer and rolled it onto a car behind the truck and killed the car's driver.

MechAg94

Glenn B said...

I notice on one side of the bridge there is a sign over the roadway on the same side as the flow of traffic, but on the side of the bridge where you see most of the truck accidents, it seems the sign is over the other traffic lane, not the one being used by the drivers who are hitting the bridge.

I loved the way the tow truck driver lowered the bus.

Shrimp said...

As someone who has repeatedly driven the 24 footers (like those seen crashing into the bridge), I can tell you that the signage often is poorly visible, or in the case of this bridge, right before you get to it, which does you next-to-no-good.

The guy at the 40 sec mark, slamming on his brakes as he realizes, "I can't fit under that!" I've done that!

Sometimes there is nothing along the road letting the truck drivers know that they have a low clearance ahead. They find out one way or another when they get to the bridge.

I've never actually hit anything with any truck I've driven, but I sure had a couple close calls, and afterwards discovered that there were no warning signs except right at the bridge/tunnel. Frustrating!

It would be one thing if I had missed a sign warning me that I was headed towards a low clearance. It's quite another thing to let the truck driver get there, then warn him he can't go that way because he won't fit.

Regardless, any driver worth a lick should be constantly checking clearance in a truck.

Anonymous said...

Working in the defense industry, we had an amusing incident where a foreign customer insisted on using their own trucking company to haul one of our missile launchers. The driver hit an overpass off-route at something like 70 mph and dropping the overpass then fled the scene and refused to report in.