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State urges colleges, truck-rental places to inform students about our quaint river roads
By adamg on Fri, 08/28/2015 - 5:59pm
DCR, MassDOT and State Police say that since 2007, there have been 25 recorded storrowings on Storrow and Memorial drives and Soldiers Field Road on weekends during which students flow into and out of the city.
So naturally, they've asked Boston colleges and companies that rent trucks to students to remind them of the height restrictions on the three roads.
“The roads along the Charles River are a vital access point for the hundreds of thousands of students returning to Boston from around the world within the next few weeks,” said DCR Commissioner Carol Sanchez. “I urge all drivers, students and nonstudents alike, to remain constantly vigilant and heed posted height restrictions during this busy period.”
State Police Col. Richard D. McKeon also urged students to remember what red lights mean when they are walking across local roads.
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Comments
If I recall correctly,
don't some of the rental agencies explicitly state in their contracts that if you take their truck on Storrow or Memorial Drives and smash it into a bridge, that you are fully liable for the cost of the truck - even if you ponied up for the damage waiver.
I admit I have not rented a
I admit I have not rented a truck in over 10 years, but when I did (at the Enterprise Rental place in Central) there had me sign a specific acknowledgment about NOT taking a truck on the river roads (complete with maps and proper names of the roads in question) and the wall was festooned with large, square, cartoony pictures of idiot stick figures in accordioned box trucks.
I haven't done this recently, but it seems that the truck rental places are putting in some real effort here, and maybe the issue lies elsewhere.
Why the heck hasn't the state
Why the heck hasn't the state installed sacrificial beams at all the on ramps?
Makes sense
But presumably, many if not most of the incoming students rented their truck in whatever town they're coming from, right?
just make
storrowing a criminal act, bam, problem solved.
Nope.
Nope.
Nobody says, "It's not illegal to ram this 10 foot truck into an 8 foot bridge, so let's go for it!"
Before you can make Storrowing
a felony, you need to fix all the signs so that a) overheight vehicles are properly warned of the precise hazards (including the exact height of the low clearance) before they are comitted to entering the river roads and b) overheight vehicles are given a signed alternate route to get to their detstinations without having to enter the river roads.
Of course, this would happen much faster if MassDOT took control of these arterial roads that serve a greater function than mere "recreational parkways".
Remember when we passed those
Remember when we passed those criminal laws against drugs, and now no one uses drugs anymore? Bam, problem solved!
50 more weeks every year
It has been a while since there has been a true student storrowing. Meanwhile, every other week of the year we have seen commercial drivers tunacanning any and every overpass.
Are they going to put out word to all CDL holders to up their game? I somehow doubt it.
Meanwhile, every other week
.
As you like to say so often - Have a cite for this statistic?