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Truck driver gets lucky on Storrow Drive; trooper stops him before his luck runs out
By adamg on Thu, 09/29/2016 - 10:37am
Kevin reports a truck driver who barely cleared the BU footbridge outbound this morning was gunning for the next bridge, but was pulled over by a state trooper who stopped him from testing his luck a second time and forced him to slowly back up under the footbridge and into one of those emergency cutouts to await the swift administration of justice. Kevin photographed the truck as it backed up.
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Comments
Pro-tip for Kevin
Standing on a footbridge taking a picture of a truck that's having to backup under said footbridge due to overheight concerns is not the sanest place to be.
Retort for Kaz
The truck had already cleared that bridge at speed.
Best 2 out of 3
And your point is? Maybe at speed he just bounced his suspension at the right time. Maybe lots of things.
Crash
"bounced his suspension at the right time"?
Stick to what you know.
Bounced his suspension
That's up there with Ashlee Simpson's "acid reflux."
When has a box truck ever
When has a box truck ever taken out a bridge?
Slow speed
The truck's slow speed backing up under the bridge isn't going to do any structural damage.
The officer telling the driver to back up hopefully would have noted whether damage occurred in the first pass under the bridge. And if it was noted, presumably they would have gotten people off of the bridge before doing anything else.
Can we get fricken
Can we get fricken sacrificial beams at on ramps and further down Storrow/Soldiers Field Road to stop idiots from getting close enough to damage our already crumbling bridges already?
More cowbells!
(Oh wait, that didn't help either.)
Sacrificial beams! Excellent idea!
Charlie Faker? are you reading this? I'll vote for you if you get this done.
someday
someday a storrowing will happen to a truck full of beer, barbeque, pretzels and dj equipment and we will party down as we should !!!!
bu beach party
please order a bouncy house!
It would serve the driver of the sorrowing truck right!
What is wrong with people? Too many storrowings are happening, and it's reached ludicrous proportions already!
Ludicrous Speed!
n/t
the next storrowing
Might just hit plaid.
Did you say "Sorrowing Truck"?
Which people? When the same
Which people? When the same accident happens so many times over and over again, you gotta shift the blame to the people at DCR/DOT who designed and maintain the thing.
Meh
The designed the road for, as the sign says, CARS ONLY.
If you are not in a car, you should probably not be on that road. Period. The words "car" and "only" are pretty basic (compared to "Pleasure Vehicles Only," which adorned many a MDC road when I was young), so the only answer is to blame our educational system for producing people over the age of 16 who cannot comprehend what "cars only" means.
Some people think that the road should be done away with as a grade separated way, while others (like myself) disagree. I think redesigning the road so that trucks can use it is one point that all sides would agree is bad.
I wonder if some of these
I wonder if some of these mistakes could be prevented by having google and apple add a truck option to their mapping/GPS software. Commercial GPS software will account for truck heights and other (hazardous material) restrictions but at the very least there could be an option for "I drive a really tall vehicle don't route me through low bridges" option.
oh hey now
There's a logo the bpda can learn from. I wonder how many thousands of dollars that one cost.
Saw more LED signs out west this week
I've suggested before that LED signage at on-ramps might help. Denver has installed these near the grade-crossings on its new commuter rail lines: https://www.tapconet.com/store/product-detail/Cyab/no-left-turn-train-le...
I think we can all agree that the CARS ONLY signage is an abject failure. Down in NY, where there are many parkways, on-ramps say NO COMMERCIAL VEHICLES. It seems to work a lot better, but then again there are a lot of limited-access parkways throughout the metro area and drivers know them. Storrow is more of an exception.
Cars only, no commercial vehicles
The main thing is the height signs, which are there. If you are in a box truck, which is both a commercial vehicle and not a car, you shouldn't be on Storrow Drive to begin with, but you would think that you would worry about the heights of bridges you pass under. And since I've seen 18 wheelers on my street, which oddly has a sign banning trucks, and commercial vehicles on the Merritt/Wilbur Cross/Hutchinson River Parkway, my takeaway is that the signs are only as good as the people who obey them.
The main thing is the height
Except for one thing. As I've pointed out numerous times on multiple threads regarding this subject, the "Danger Low Clearance" signs that drivers don't even see until they've committed to entering the roadway are missing one thing - the ACTUAL CLEARANCE!
Telling you that bridge is too low as you're about to hit it may prevent you from hitting it. But posting the sign at a location where there's no way for you to get off the road beforehand is of limited benefit for everyone.
Except
There are height signs when you get to the point on the road where you need them.
We all argue about this, and will most likely continue to argue about them.
Point taken
I've revised my post to clarify the comment.