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MORE METAL FOR THE BRIDGE GOD!!
Oil for the oil Lord!
Sumps for his Throne!!!
I’m American but live outside the US in a developing country.
Here, the situation on the roads is wildly unstandardized. Every turn, road sign, curb size, lane width, bridge height, traffic signal duration, etc may or may not be consistent with anything else. Not to mention drivers going the wrong way, motorcycles on the sidewalks, people stopping in the road and more.
Because of the weirdness drivers know they have to pay attention or else death and injury awaits.
The fact that the 11’ 8" bridge still takes so many casualties suggests drivers confidently think they can drive all over the USA and the road is engineered to an exacting standard. Except for this one bridge.
I think it’s actually time for the city to just properly fix this bridge and bring it up to standard.
If you’ve followed the news and history of this bridge, the city did actually try. They increased the clearance from the original 11 ft 8 in to 12 ft 4 in, but that’s still a bit too low for large vehicles. There’s limited room to expand since that bridge is a rail bridge and there are utilities under the ground.
Because of the weirdness drivers know they have to pay attention or else death and injury awaits.
That is one thing I admire about chaotic roads. I remember hearing the rule of crossing the street in Hanoi is to just look where you want to go and walk in a straight line at a constant speed, and expect traffic to work around you. Standardization and signage really just exists to make driving easier.
Yeah here in Bangkok the only rule is that there are no rules. I jokingly say that whomever believes in reincarnation the most has the right of way.
This system does work, but there are still way more casualties than necessary.
Woah, I thought these videos were done! The city has invested so much to make this a reasonable and heavily signed intersection, yet… Here we are still seeing people smack it. At least the bridge is well protected now.
There was a good streak about a year ago, then a like 9 months break until today
For more bridge webcam nonsense, check out Needles Underpass!
Running the red light is the cherry on top
FWIW the red light is the “hey you’re too tall” signal and changes pretty quickly. Almost feels like it shouldn’t even have a yellow light, just dump straight to red and hope the truck slams on its brakes.
I believe when it senses a over-height vehicle it turns the light red so that they have to stop and see the flashing lights
Oh wow I’ve known about this bridge for awhile now and I never knew they have an automatic light like that. Man, they really tried everything lol
The website FAQ goes into detail about what they already tried and why it doesn’t really make sense to do even more
Nobody ever learns lmao
I had heard they raised it, and I had not heard anything for a long time, so I assumed this was fixed.
So, how high should a standard bridge in the US actually be?
I know that here in Europe the clearence is supposed to be 4.5m (14’8’‘) minimum and 4.7m (15’4’') with new designs.
Part of the problem is that we’ve got a hodgepodge of roads, built at different times, to different standards. Rail crossings are also complicated, because the train companies own the rails and the land under them, so cities are largely unable to force them to make changes to their property.
In this particular instance, the tracks would need to be redone for a few miles on either side of the bridge to raise it, and the North Carolina Train Company just isn’t willing to front the cost and eat the downtime. There’s only so far you can dig down before you hit groundwater problems, so the city can’t do much to lower the road under the bridge.
I would solve this problem in the opposite way. Install some much lower barriers(eg 2.5m) which make it painfully apparent that you aren’t going to get anything other than a car under it.
A truck driver isn’t going to keep driving if the barrier is clearly at face height.
About the only thing I can think of would be a sign at the height of the crash bar that says “If you hit this sign you’ll hit that bridge” but given the kind of people we’ve been allowing to survive childhood for the last 80 years that also probably wouldn’t work.
From the faq.
The signage is good, and the vast majority of truck drivers notice the problem and avoid the bridge. Large signs alert driver to the low clearance several blocks before the bridge. Half a block before the trestle, a sensor detects overheight vehicles and triggers an LED blackout warning sign that was installed in May 2016. That same sensor also triggers a red-light phase at the traffic light directly in front of the trestle (installed in March 2016), so the driver has 50 seconds to read the warning sign next to the red traffic light and consider their next move.
For them to even be in this position, they have to ignore several signs, a flashing sign, and run a red light. Some people simply can’t be helped.
Another one by the same moving company apparently. I hope it was a different driver and their new insurance policy will cover this.
Maybe they do it for brand awareness now.
New one!!!
I have a friend who lives in the area. Trying to get them to take a photo of the bridge for me.
I’ve hear they’re raising the clearance on this bridge soon
That bridge is for a train track. Raising it would be a large, expensive, time consuming project. If you’re changing the grade of a train track, it will need to be long, gradual, and smooth.
Thanks for the heads up!
No problem tin can head!
I wonder how it would have gone if he stopped for the red.
Stopping doesn’t make the vehicle shorter! This is a common myth, especially among large oversize vehicle drivers in this area.
Maybe had he not been staring at the light and stopped, he’d have seen all the warnings. Having rushed a light or two myself, I’m pretty sure the focus in on that.
Do you mean if he wasn’t staring at the red light? The light that means Stop? Maybe if he wasn’t staring at the light telling him to stop immediately he might have stopped?
Not a very good driver, are you?
