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The CARS ONLY sign must have made quite the sound when it hit the top of the truck
By adamg on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 7:50am
Kara Sassone shows us the reason Soldiers Field Road is backed up onto Storrow Drive this morning. Or as she puts it:
Thanks. Thanks a lot.
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Comments
Nice time for a Storrowing
At the time I passed it going the other way the backup was less than half a mile, but I would think it would pile up pretty quickly.
I drove by it this morning
I drove by it this morning too, there was no meaningful backup on the eastbound side.
7AM
Ya, I went by at 7. At the time it was closer to the bridge and was blocking a lane. By the time this picture was taken it seems to have made it back to a pulloff.
This seems to happen to Kara
This seems to happen to Kara a lot. In fact, I recognized her name from all the times Adam has RT'ed her Storrowing pictures.
Yes, it does
That's because she's a regular Storrow commuter, at that early hour when truck drivers forget how to read.
Truck is pulled over?
Count me in the camp that marvels at the stupidity of some truck drivers and who wants to keep storrow drive truck-free, but...
looks like the truck is pulled over, not blocking traffic? So the backup must be drivers slowing down to take pictures of the truck and post on instagram/facebook/whatever about it, right?
Looks like the truck is blocking the merging lane.
The truck isn't pulled over on a shoulder, that white line that ends represents the merge point of an onramp that the truck is blocking. This would cause significant traffic obstruction.
The truck's parked in the cutout
From the photo, it's pulled over on that cutout right before the BU bridge and the exit to BU, much further down from the onramp from Cambridge Street, so it wouldn't be blocking the travel lanes.
Was stuck in this on the way to Logan
Picture must be from later because I went by around 7ish and the truck was half in/half out of the right hand lane.
Another professionally licensed driver I'm assuming?
i wonder..
if these truck drivers realize the inconvenience they cost a few thousand people late to work. All because they can't read signs.
Oh no, god forbid someone
Oh no, god forbid someone inconveniences you on your commute. As if Boston roads are free-flowing rainbows of happiness without these truck drivers.
You have no problems with truck drivers ramming into bridges?
Yes, let's take all the warning signs down. Disband the police! Cry havoc and let loose the trucks of war!
are you serious?
These are commercial truck drivers, and there are height limit signs everywhere. They should know better. This is a completely avoidable occurrence and people have a right to be mad about it.
Let's see about that
Driver from Georgia passes a gazillion "Low Clearance" signs on the interstate, all of which indicate a clearance higher than the top of their truck.
Same driver now goes to enter Storrow Drive and sees sign indicating "Danger Low Clearance" but without the actual clearance stated on the sign. Do you really expect them to be a mind reader?
This truck would have had to
This truck would have had to have gotten on Storrow via Cambridge Street. Unfortunately there's no warning about the height restriction until you've already gone down that little side road next to the Doubletree: https://goo.gl/maps/9tid1vucyn52
Maybe if there were a warning up at Cambridge Street? Obviously that won't help for other entrance points, but it seems like that entrance is especially under-warned.
Designed for failure
The problem with a warning at Cambridge St. is that there's an access road for Houghton Chemical and formerly the CSX yard. Many trucks used to use this entrace. There's never been decent signage for it. I'm sure that GPS use has made it even more confusing. If there were clear signs for trucks saying they can easily get back to Cambridge St., which they can from there, it would probably reduce the uncertainty for unfamiliar drivers. This is one of the more idiotic set-ups.
"NO TRUCKS
"NO TRUCKS
except to hotel and Houghton Chemical"
Problem solved.
Add LOW CLEARANCE AHEAD to that
or would that be too long?
while true, im nearly
while true, im nearly positive theres a road that loops around doubletree before getting on storrow proper.
Escape is possible....
I think it's still possible to take a right turn before you get on Storrow drive and swing around the back of the Doubletree to recover. It's not real obvious though.
How stupid can people get?
One would think that truck drivers would learn to read the signs after so many incidents like this have happened? Where has common sense gone to? Out the window and by the wayside, that's where!
GPS has made us stupider
Read the signs? How quaint.
a pipe dream, maybe...
...but wouldn't it be possible to program GPS programs to warn against certain exits for certain size vehicles? I mean, you can get real-time traffic data. Why not set it so that, if you're in a big enough truck or bus, it doesn't even send you onto a road you're not supposed to drive on, and it starts yelling at you if you try to get onto that road?
I am neither a driver nor a computer programmer, so please don't yell at me too much. Just seems to make sense, since we all rely so heavily on our little glowing rectangles of information, to program them in such a way that some of these near-storrowings don't happen.
There are GPS units for truck drivers...
... that utilize information about relevant restrictions. See, for instance:
http://www.dieselboss.com/truck_gps_review_features.htm
If my livelihood involved driving trucks, I think it would be more than worth my while to have a GPS that would provide guidance that would avoid avoidable disasters.
In a logical world
One would expect the trucking companies to provide these units in their trucks, which cost orders of magnitude more than the units do.
In a logical world
it would be a requirement that the same level of information about roadway restrictions be provided in ALL GPS units.
Wouldn't help with the Google
Certainly wouldn't help with the Google Maps problem, though.
If trucking companies provided the commercial GPS and demanded that drivers use that, it would go far further than demanding units not in use carry information that wouldn't be used.
Truck route app for google maps.
Not cheap, but not outrageously expensive either. Especially when you consider the other costs associated with running a truck.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teletype.smarttruckrou...
Not logical at all
Car drivers have no need for this info (unless they are renting a truck -- in which case they should have to rent a truck-specific GPD as well). And GPS providers of truck-related info have a lot more legwork to do to gather (an keep current) the relevant information.
In a logical world
Truck inspection stations on the highways would be open and do random spot checks on which GPS unit the driver uses and USDOT would include GPS checkouts they way they require logbooks and break periods etc etc.