CC Overnight Outtake: Feeling Lucky?
– Posted on April 11, 2012
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I wonder how many times that bridge was hit before the sign went up…and how many times after!
Considering how long the 70-0 braking distance of a fully loaded semi truck is, I’ve always thought the warning signs on the interstate should be a little further back than they are.
The South Side of Chicago needs that sign desperately. It’s so much fun to be stuck in traffic because a driver couldn’t judge his (or her) Rig.
To be fair..
Our state has a bad habit of not changing it’s clearance signs after the road has been “improved”.
Ahh hahahahahaaa!
I don’t know if the situation still exists, but in the Northwest side of Chicago, there was a viaduct (Lawrence Avenue, just east of Manheim near the airport) that flooded most every rainstorm. In the 60s, we’d get stories on the evening news of the various fools who tried out for Uboat commander. (Never saw a Porsche in the bunch, though.) 🙂 The lucky ones were driving Beetles and could get towed to shore.
Klamath Falls has a similar viaduct and it eats a car or two each year.
We have a bridge nearby with over-height signs at each end of the bridge itself. The bridge is old and narrow, so the signs are there to stop tall (and thus usually too wide)vehicles driving over the bridge. The problem being that the sign at the northern end is slightly higher, which led to a small delivery truck happily entering the bridge with no trouble last year, then hitting the lower sign at the southern end. The aluminium roof of the truck’s rear compartment partially peeled back and the sign became completely tangled and wedged in the twisted metal. Suffice to say a crane was required and the police were not impressed…
Ahh hahahahahaaa! Oh, you guys are slayin’ me!!
For more hilarity: http://11foot8.com/
YES!! Thanks for those! That was hysterical! Man, can people be stupid.
Possible reaction seeing this for the first time while driving in five words: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SCREECH! BOOM! OWWWWWWWWWW! £~~~€¥
F-bomb
Obvious sign is obvious, oblivious driver is oblivious…
We have a few low-clearance bridges around my area. one bridge was a railroad overpass with only 13.5′ clearance. In spite of signs, semis used to get stuck all the time. When that happened, they had to uncouple the trailer, let the air out of the tires and pull the trailer free, refill, hook up, reverse back to the intersection and get ticketed, not to mention getting in trouble for the damaged trailer, and perhaps the damaged goods inside. They finally removed the overpass, but there are still some left.
Kind of like me briefly going airborne at 70 mph one fine midnight in the air force when I didn’t notice the sign alerting me that the road was no longer there. I found out real quick when my avatar landed about 18″ lower in the dirt where a road used to be…
My excuse? I was really into a great Chicago Transit Authority 8-track playing in the tape deck!
Zackman, I still like the old, early years of Chicago music. They had such a unique sound. The “long” version of Make Me Smile was and still is a favorite of mine.
Tom Klockau needs to post a pic (or several) of the truck eating bridge that exists in downtown Davenport, Iowa. That thing is absolutely infamous.
I was thinking the same thing. Will have to put that on my CC to-do list…
In fact, there are two truck eating bridges in Davenport. I remember when we moved from the Quad Cities to the Twin Cities, when I rented a U-Haul truck I had to sign a very specific insurance waiver of some type to the effect that driving under either of those bridges would be done at my own risk, and would not be covered by the purchased insurance.
I remember driving through Pennsylvania on I-81 in a rental truck, and seeing directly ahead of me an overpass with a big gash out of its underside where something had not quite cleared…I had a few seconds to reassure myself that my truck was not nearly that tall, but it was a little unnerving.
On the other hand, I have seen a U-Haul parked on the street in Madison where the renter had tried to take it under a nearby low railroad viaduct…”Mom’s Attic” had sustained quite a blow. That had to have been a jolt for the driver. I hope he sprung for the extra insurance.
Back in the late ’70s my Dad worked at the local Chev-Olds emporium. One morning the car carrier rolled onto the lot with a load of pickups and vans. One of the vans had been loaded in the spot over the cab of the tractor, a definite No-No. BC is very mountainous, thus there are lots of bridges and tunnels. One of them very effectively sheared the roof from said van. The remains of which then landed on the full load “cowboy Cadillac” pickup behind it. Both units were special order and had customers waiting. The driver’s excuse was that he did not understand metric measurement, which was being phased (forced) in at the time.
I don’t recall seeing him again after that….
Reminds me of being at a multi-storey carpark entry when a lady in an SUV with roof bars drove in and went clunk-clunk on the height restrictor (stickered pvc pipe suspended on chains). Now apart from lights etc this carpark was fully sprinklered which could cause a problem, not to mention more damage to a vehicle than a plastic light diffuser. As she stopped at the ticket machine we asked here if she realised she’d hit the restrictor, and she said yes, and she parks there every day, so presumably by not much more than luck she hasn’t hit anything yet!
What sign…