The Bridge wins 99.9% of the time

[Uncle Al]

How to 'clean' off the top of your truck, camper or what-ever

People can't/don't read bridge heights and try to go under the railroad bridge.
In most cases, the bridge wins

11foot8.com

Uncle Al

[crfriend]

11foot8.com

Al originally sent that to me in a private message and I laughed so hard I thought I was going to spit my teeth out.

Now, I live close to Boston (Massachusetts, USA), that quintessential hub of "higher" education and whatnot, and each and every autumn when "school" is getting set to start up inevitably Storrow Drive (which runs along the Boston side of the Charles River) gets closed down two or three times because some inattentive "student" didn't pay attention to the signage at the entrance ramps which all clearly state "LOW CLEARANCE" and give the maximum height for vehicles. It's almost a rite of the season. And, no, Biff or Muffy will not be getting the security deposit back on their van rental, and mummy and daddy will be getting a hefty bill for the damage caused (both to van and overpasses, the latter having been rather badly battered over the decades and are in need of replacement soon (read, "two decades ago")).

As I related privately to Al, I fondly recall a sight I saw during a drive from Atlanta, Georgia (USA (more or less)) to Huntsville, Alabama (same country, but one would be forgiven for not recognizing it) in which along the way there was a structure overhanging the roadway with stout iron chains hanging therefrom and a prominent sign atop proclaiming, "If you hit this you WILL hit the bridge." And, yes, the bridge showed some pretty decent battle scars.

[skirted_in_SF]

As I related privately to Al, I fondly recall a sight I saw during a drive from Atlanta, Georgia (USA (more or less)) to Huntsville, Alabama (same country, but one would be forgiven for not recognizing it) in which along the way there was a structure overhanging the roadway with stout iron chains hanging therefrom and a prominent sign atop proclaiming, "If you hit this you WILL hit the bridge." And, yes, the bridge showed some pretty decent battle scars.

Kind of like what the railroads used to do before tunnels and bridges back in the day when brakemen might have been on the top of the cars.

[Kirbstone]

Entertaining viewing, no doubt, but tainted with 'Shadenfreude' nonetheless.

In Europe, while a lot of older tunnels are too low for modern container trucks, they appear to have settled on a minimum height of 4.65 meters or 15 ft 3 inches. Motorway bridges are much higher, of course, but the new tunnels all seem to have that minimum headroom.

Greedy firms (like Marks & Sparks) in recent years deployed so-called super-cube trucks as tall or taller than double-deckers, none of which would fit into the tunnels and several of which fell foul of our windy weather. They have been banned, so far as I know.

Tom.

[BobM]

That video is a commentary on human nature. Some people simply will not believe truth when they see ( or hear ) it. Not to mention those who sail through life with their eyes shut.

[crfriend]

Entertaining viewing, no doubt, but tainted with 'Shadenfreude' nonetheless.

Absolutely, and I recognized that in me upon first viewing it because I still recall with sheer terror the first time I drove a box-van of the type that hit the barrier so many times on that web-site! As terrifying as it was, it was still exhilarating, and, no, I didn't hit anything. OK, I did drive the rear wheels over a kerb, though which induced a sensation not unlike just before the boat's mast topples into the water.

In Europe, while a lot of older tunnels are too low for modern container trucks, they appear to have settled on a minimum height of 4.65 meters or 15 ft 3 inches. Motorway bridges are much higher, of course, but the new tunnels all seem to have that minimum headroom.

For every cubic foot of earth that comes out of that bore there is a financial sum to be paid, and since the highway "loading gauge" (to use the railway term) is already set by some of those "pioneer tunnels" it doesn't make much sense to dig bigger bores (why drive a 30-foot diameter bore through a mountain when the thing'll be bracketed by a pair of 25-footers?).

Greedy firms (like Marks & Sparks) in recent years deployed so-called super-cube trucks as tall or taller than double-deckers, none of which would fit into the tunnels and several of which fell foul of our windy weather. They have been banned, so far as I know.

I recall seeing some of the video footage of assorted capsize events in high cross-winds. It's a good thing the rigs have been banned. The typical way that companies try to get around the problem here is by cascading multiple trailers onto one tractor -- aka "LCVs" or, "Longer Combination Vehicles". The Aussies call 'em "road-trains", and I can state from experience that it's terrifying indeed to be anywhere near one of the things in a good breeze as they shake like snakes. For my druthers, if it's more than one truckload it belongs on the rails.

Come to think of it, one of the regulars here used to drive such a rig. It'd be interesting to hear his experiences.

[Big and Bashful]

Oh bum! the link won't work for me, I keep getting a server error.

[dillon]

I was finally able to open the link and realized I know this bridge! It is near downtown Durham, NC and I have been under it at least fifty times, luckily not in a tall truck, LMAO! I am forwarding it to my son, who goes to school in Durham. Thanks, Al!

[Big and Bashful]

Such an easy cure as well (Yes the link worked this time). Just dig the road bed down a foot or so, problem solved. Do I win a prize?

[crfriend]

Such an easy cure as well (Yes the link worked this time). Just dig the road bed down a foot or so, problem solved. Do I win a prize?

It turns out that there's a 100+ year-old sewer line that runs about a foot below the road that cannot be taken out of service... The other thing about digging down is drainage.

This one looks like a no-win for the careless.

[Big and Bashful]

Oh well. no prize then Still, it's entertaining watching all those van drivers ignoring all the warnings for our entertainment!

[Jim]

Fine each vehicle that hits it until you have enough money to raise the bridge.

[crfriend]

Fine each vehicle that hits it until you have enough money to raise the bridge.

It's a railroad bridge, and to raise the bridge, you'd have to create approach and departure grades hundreds or thousands of feet long on either side of the bridge to get it to the more-or-less Interstate "standard" of 14 feet.

Let's see, 11-foot-8, let's call that 12 feet for simplicity, so we'd need to raise the girders by two feet. Trains don't much like grades, and a 1 percent grade (one foot rise in 100 linear feet) taxes them seriously enough that extra helper locomotives are frequently required to "make the grade". So that's out. A 1/4% grade might do the trick, but that'll mean that both the approach and departure grades will each have to be 800 feet long (multiplied by the area of the triangle so formed then by the width of the roadbed will yield very roughly the amount of fill required for one grade and double that for both, assuming the thing is symmetric) and we know that the bridge is not alone and there are others in the vicinity which might have to be altered as well.

So, at today's infrastructure costs, we'd be fining inattentive truck-drivers for centuries to fund the rebuild -- and the rebuild would take the rail line out of commission for months resulting in their incoming revenue for the line going to zero for the duration. The railroad would not be happy with that -- not one bit.

The crash-barrier does its job rather cost-effectively.

[dillon]

The problem here is that a major route enters Durham via an avenue that splits into northbound and southbound (Gregson) one-way streets as it approaches downtown. Though it is not a numbered highway, it is well known that Gregson is a straight shot through downtown to hit the 147 expressway southbound. In fact, before 147 was completed past Duke Medical Center and out to I-85, and I-40 was completed past Chapel Hill out to I-85, Gregson St was a well known shortcut to the expressway and used by half the Raleigh-bound traffic coming from the west on I-85. I suspect that GPS Nav systems still show it as such and may direct vehicles that way, sans information of the clearance required. The only real recourse to prevent these accidents is to reroute trucks...that means either pissing off residents by sending them a few blocks away and down through a residential area on a street with a grade crossing, or closing the route to trucks entirely, routing them west on I-85, then south on 147, a detour of probably six to eight miles at least. I think the chain drag warning thing is a good idea, but will the drivers hear the chains, and pay attention? Perhaps reducing the speed limit dramatically and using a laser-interuption system to trigger a big flashing sign that tells them their vehicle is too tall for the underpass would be better. I suppose if any warning prevented a handful of crashes each year, it would be a positive addition to the street. I do feel bad for the hapless grad students moving into Durham to study at Duke University and destroying a U-Haul truck containing their possessions in the process...but I still laughed like heck at the videos, even though my sense of decency tells me I should not.

[crfriend]

[...]Perhaps reducing the speed limit dramatically and using a laser-interuption system to trigger a big flashing sign that tells them their vehicle is too tall for the underpass would be better.[...]

Done, and done. Note the large warning sign just above the crash-barrier with the flashing lights on it; that's tripped by an optical sensor somewhere to the northeast of the truck-eating bridge.

I took a bird's-eye view of the place yesterday with the aid of Google Maps, and really felt for the highway planners. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place with that structure There's a grade crossing about 500 feet to the southeast with the Durham railroad station another hundred feet or so beyond that and in the other direction is another grade crossing about 1200 feet to the northwest -- and the local terrain (which the vehicular roads follow) takes a dip in between with Gregson street at the bottom of the dip (hence the bridge). They can't raise the bridge, nor can they lower the roadway -- it is what it is.

Ultimately it's not up to the municipality to prevent all crashes, but rather to make a best-effort try to warn unsuspecting truck-drivers to the standing peril that's in front of them. If the driver ignores the warning then it's plain flat-out the driver's fault -- and I don't care what distraction caused you to miss the big clue regarding impending doom directly in front of you. Your eyes are supposed to be looking ahead most of the time, not at the cell-phone, not at the sat-nav, not at the radio, and not at your in-dash TV screen.

I do feel bad for the hapless grad students moving into Durham to study at Duke University and destroying a U-Haul truck containing their possessions in the process...but I still laughed like heck at the videos, even though my sense of decency tells me I should not.

I don't feel bad for them a bit, the same way I don't feel bad for Biff or Muffy when they wedge a rental-van under a bridge on Boston's Storrow Drive (which is very well marked). If you don't pay attention, you get what you deserve. It's the folks that get stuck in the resulting traffic-jams I feel for -- they didn't have it coming. I know, that's heartless, but nature doesn't have any pity either. Folks need to take some responsibility for their actions.