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Comment by sebastien_bois | Hacker News Reader

Still not high enough. They raised it another 8 inches to make it an even 12ft not too long ago, but evidently that still not enough.

One would think they would've looked more closely at the traffic on that road and adjusted it accordingly.

It's also really silly to have a sign indicating that too large vehicles must turn, which most drivers won't read/see in time, and practically force them to crash into the bridge, instead of having some sort of 'bumpers' ahead of the bridge for those vehicles to bump into first (I've seen those at entrances of parking lots that have both above ground and underground parking).

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> a sign indicating that too large vehicles must turn, which most drivers won't read/see in time

When the sign activates, it also causes the traffic light to turn red. In theory, that provides plenty of time to notice and respond to the sign; in practice, collisions still happen because people just run the red light.

If someone's sufficiently determined to do something stupid and reckless, there's only so much you can do to discourage them.

> instead of having some sort of 'bumpers' ahead of the bridge for those vehicles to bump into first

That's what the big yellow beam is; it was installed to protect the bridge. If something was installed farther away (i.e. before the intersection) it would get in the way of large vehicles that were intending to turn before the bridge.

Running a red light should be an automatic re-exam for your license. Not two weeks ago: I stop for a red, the guy behind me stops, the guy behind him overtakes both of us and nearly kills a cyclist that had started to move in front of me. A fraction of a second quicker response by the cyclist off the mark and he'd be dead.

I hate red light runners with a serious passion.

Note people aren't running reds here necessarily. A system detects a tall vehicle moving towards the bridge & times a red light. They stop, & during that time they might notice that the bridge is low & there's a sign telling them the max height. Some don't notice, & when the light goes green they drive on under

> That's what the big yellow beam is; it was installed to protect the bridge.

Yes, that one protects the bridge - what I'm talking about is a 'warning' bumper, that you can run into, but won't damage the vehicle (as others' comments here have mentioned). It would be put up further up ahead of the bridge itself (not at the bridge). Something like this:

https://www.cisco-eagle.com/catalog/product/157494/garage-lo...

That's going to get destroyed by every 13' truck that smacks into it. The bridge is just on the other side of an intersection. The other three paths from that intersection are perfectly fine for 14' trucks to drive on.

And those bumpers might not cause structural damage, but I'm sure you wouldn't want random plastic objects scraping across your roof when you drive, right?

> That's going to get destroyed by every 13' truck that smacks into it

Why, yes, a 9 foot pole would get run over by a 13 foot truck. There's a reason I used the words "something like..." and not "exactly this..."

> but I'm sure you wouldn't want random plastic objects scraping across your roof when you drive, right?

Again - it's used as a WARNING SYSTEM - you prefer returning the truck with a torn off roof, or a still-fully functional one with just some extra minor scrapes?

The placement would have to be on a street where tall trucks are currently allowed. So now they can’t traverse the other nearby streets, even if they had no intention of using the underpass.

Ultimately I think the proper solution would be either far more clearance, or a dedicated lane for trucks/large vehicles (probably ALL trucks) forcing them to turn.

The casualty of that solution might be buses (as others pointed out this road is also being used for), but the city can make exceptions for those (as is usual in most places due to stops being commonly in the right turn lane).

It's clear from the massive number of videos, and of various types of drivers (truck rentals, furniture delivery trucks, campers, etc.) that the current "system" they have is inadequate to avoid these crashes. "It just doesn't work". Just blaming the driver only isn't a solution (I actually wonder if the city/railroad has ever been sued because of this).

Hey, I take back my rejection of your idea. I just saw someone else post this image [0] of a similar situation in Australia, and seems like that would work just fine, even for tall trucks that are gonna turn anyway. Make those dangly bits out of a weighted pool noodle.

[0] https://imgur.com/kYwsgEZ

It is a one-way street, two lanes, so you'd have one lane dedicated to all trucks going left and one lane dedicated to all trucks going right. And all cars could go straight under the bridge from either lane.

That is already what is set up. All trucks must turn before going under the bridge.

Except people ignore that and go straight anyway.

You make it sound like it's normal that people would expect that they can drive into a bridge without checking the height first - as if it's the bridge's fault for being too low. Why don't the drivers check?

Because people are human. They are passing a 4-way intersection. Their wife is angry at them. Their boss is giving them a hard time. Who knows.

People are human and they make mistakes all the time. That's why simple, clear signage helps. Why wayfaring is a science. Why packaging is difficult.

> That's why simple, clear signage helps.

But the bridge is signed, isn't it?

If it were done well, would there have been 100+ accidents?

I guess I don't understand why tall vehicles are approaching a bridge at such speed that they don't have time to react.

It doesn't seem an abnormally low bridge in the first place.

It is about two feet or so below modern standard for bridge clearance. But it was within spec when it was built.

I am pretty confident an abnormally low bridge would have fewer accidents — the fact that it looks like it's just high enough doesn't help matters.

Perhaps the simplest solution is to introduce a light hanging (eg rubber) plate to make the underpass appear even shorter so people do stop and look at the signs.

I used to drive under this bridge almost every day. It is remarkably well signed. But some people just can’t be reached. I’m reminded of the elective attention test.

http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html

>> That's why simple, clear signage helps.

> But the bridge is signed, isn't it?

But is it done clearly?

It's a huge bridge, right in your way.

What more do you really think they should do?

Why is anyone driving underneath a bridge without carefully checking the height.

If the height isn't clear, why don't people stop rather than just ploughing into it.

Ever missed a single down-step and fell down/got tripped up?

How could you possibly miss it??? I mean, it was right there in front of you!

I mean, it doesn’t matter that it “blended in” and wasn’t easily visible, and has no handrail, it was still right there.

> it doesn’t matter that it “blended in” and wasn’t easily visible

It's a MASSIVE bridge, right in front of your face, and bright yellow warning bar.

THE POINT IS that the height difference isn’t that “massive” as you describe it - LOOK AT ALL THE VIDEOS (that’s right: plural) - it’s clear that the lack of clearance is not so obvious.

But if there’s any bridge coming at you, don’t you stop and think ‘will I fit under this?’

Not when 99.999% of your driving experience tells you that bridges aren’t a threat. These are primarily rental trucks, and people are not accustomed to thinking that their head is several feet below the top of their vehicle.

Because they're not used to driving trucks. Modern light weight cargo vehicles accelerate and brake as though they are personal cars. Spend an hour or two behind the wheel of one and you're liable to forget that you have this huge box behind you that extends well over the height of the cab, the part that is in your immediate field of view. It takes some serious situational awareness to keep that at the front of your thoughts when driving an unfamiliar vehicle on unfamiliar roads.

The basic assumption people make is that the roads they know or that are indicated by their navigator are the roads that they can drive on. I don't recall even if my navigator has a way of setting the vehicle height, I should check that.

Isn't the first and last thing anyone driving a tall vehicle is told that they should check the height of bridges before going under them?

Absolutely. And then you do it for a couple of hours concentrating on the road and driving the car between the lines nicely widthwise and you'll forget it when you need it most.

I've done a lot of driving, some of it boxtrucks and larger and when you switch vehicles it is a thing that you need to remind yourself of constantly. The easiest solution would be to dig that road out to standard depth, the next best would be to drop it from all navigation systems so that at least people that do not know about it won't try to use it.

> And then you do it for a couple of hours concentrating on the road and driving the car between the lines nicely widthwise and you'll forget it when you need it most.

Must be different locations being different.

But where I'm from you couldn't remotely just drive regardless of your vehicle height. You'd smash into something within minutes.

Here the right hand lane is up to truck standards and if it isn't it is very clearly marked as such, I wouldn't even know of a road that isn't explicitly closed for trucks that you could not take an 18 wheeler on.

But - and this is the crucial bit - the main distinguishing factor between what is a truck and what counts as a van is different in Europe than in the US/Canada. In the US/Canada on my normal 'lightweight' license I can drive a 10 ton truck, in Europe I'm limited to 3500 KG which puts an automatic limit on the size vehicle, a typical sprinter or boxvan would not be higher than 3.5 meters and everybody else will need a class 'C' driving license at a minimum and once you pass that you shouldn't need to be taught about vehicle height any more. There is a loophole called a BE trailer but those are very rare and the people that drive them tend to know their limitations.

Even so there are plenty of professional drivers in those crash videos that fall for it just the same. I'll give the rental van drivers a pass as long as they cross on the green light and they're only a few inches high. Usually the height of the truck will vary by that much just based on acceleration / deceleration and angle of the 5th wheel hitch if it has one as well as the angle of the road approaching the barrier and the length of the vehicle. If you measure the vehicle while stationary on flat ground you might think you can get away with it when you really can't.

Somewhat related to this is the problem of children being left in hot/cold cars accidentally.

When our son was very young (< 2 years old), my girlfriend/wife was usually the one to take him to daycare in the morning. Occasionally she would have to leave for work early or was running late and would ask me to take him instead. This seemed to me to be a perfect storm to have him left behind in the car when I went to work: not used to having him there, I might drive directly to work "on autopilot" and get out and leave him asleep in his car seat.

I often wondered if this was at the heart of kids being left in hot cars.

Anyway, I forced myself to get into the habit of always turning around and checking that the car seat was empty before getting out the car, every single time, just in case.

Of course, it never happened, but I can see how easy it is to forget stuff like this when you're simply not used to doing it.

That’s exactly why it happens so often. Most of us live (well, until recently lived) lives of quiet routine, and a quiet child in the back seat is surprisingly easy to overlook when that’s not your routine.

> You make it sound like it's normal that people would expect that they can drive into a bridge without checking the height first

1. Most people would correctly expect that road-approved vehicles would clear all bridges.

2. This one is literally a couple of inches out for clearance; it looks like the truck is 12ft (or whatever the current bridge height is), which is probably what the truck's height indication is. It's not unreasonable for the driver to expect to clear the bridge even knowing the height of both, especially if they match closely.

3. The bridge was recently lifted to its current height - if this is a 'local' driver, they probably expect all vehicles to clear it now, knowing it got lifted.

> Most people would correctly expect that road-approved vehicles would clear all bridges.

Oh right ok that's it - in my country you absolutely can't assume this so everyone is careful at all low-looking bridges.

But I would wager that this is not a "low-looking bridge" — and I am confident making it look like an even lower bridge would help matters.

> One would think they would've looked more closely at the traffic on that road and adjusted it accordingly.

They didn't raise it only eight inches because they simply felt like it and picked a number out of their hat - eight inches was the most they could do without also impacting a nearby level crossing. Ballasting plain track up to a higher level can be done relatively easily (up to a certain extent of course), whereas touching the level crossing requires more work and also creates problems with the road geometry there:

If you raise the track across the level crossing too much, you create a nice little hump on which long vehicles can now get stuck, which isn't what you'd want, either. Fixing that in turn means rebuilding an even more considerable section of the crossing street, with all that that entails...

This is an absurd post, as if the rental trucks were there long before the railroad.

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