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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Bollards 3, bozos 0. [1]

The Sidney Harbor Tunnel had a serious problem with oversized trucks getting wedged in the tunnel. Watch a truck drive past two sets of giant flashing overhead warning signs. They stop only when they reach the final sign at the tunnel mouth, a water curtain with a giant STOP sign projected on it.[2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Cw0QJU8ro [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRKA7m-tbqM

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That water screen is really brilliant.

An earlier bridge for them to crash into will also do the job quite nicely.

To be nice make it out of crumpling noisy material, not concrete.

> An earlier bridge for them to crash into will also do the job quite nicely.

Except for the part where it requires significantly more maintenance to fix up the bridge and it's incredibly dangerous for drivers following, whether the truck hard-stops or gets its top sheared off.

Hanging bars seem to solve this problem. Makes a loud terrifying noise when you hit them, but doesn't leave any permanent damage.

Truckers may not notice if the problem is at the rear trailer, as it was in the video. The water curtain, although unusual, is not expensive. It's just a sprinkler pipe and a very bright slide projector.

Also, it's at the start of a blind curve -- the road design naturally leads you to slow down as you approach, so stopping short be won't be as much of a problem.

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