A trucking company could be responsible for paying at least part of the estimated $1.8 million price tag to repair damage caused when one of their loads struck a bridge. But the company is blaming their customer for giving them a load they weren’t expecting.
According to a spokesperson for the Alaska DOT, Shannon McCarthy, a truck operated by Bighorn Enterprises struck an overpass bridge over Glenn Highway in Eagle River, Alaska along the state’s busiest commute route. An average of 57,000 vehicles travel the route every day. With only the one major road serving the area however, when the bridge strike happened and the road closed, commutes which normally took about an hour spiked to five hours or more. Traffic was so bad that school was cancelled for local schools in Eagle River and Chugiak. Alaska’s Governor even made a trip to the bridge to examine the damage.
The Bighorn truck was hauling a modular building which was supposed to be temporary housing. According to a statement posted on the company’s now-deleted Facebook page, the load was permitted for an oversize haul up to 17 feet tall. Since the bridge had a clearance height of 18’ 8”, the load should have made it. But Bighorn’s post claimed that “the load we picked up and transported on the 21st was not the load that we were expecting or told we were hauling.”
So, when the truck passed under the bridge, the modular section was destroyed as it struck the overpass, causing at least $1.8 million in structural damage to the bridge.
“When I spoke with people who were at the scene yesterday, they said there was still concrete that was raining from the structure,” said McCarthy.
The driver was cited for failure to follow conditions of the permit, but it is still unclear how much the company will be asked to pay for the repairs which kept the road closed for five days.
THE DRIVER SHOULD HAVE GOTTIN HIS TAPE MEASURE OUT.
Exactly! Driver and the company must take responsibility for this accident along with the shipper
So… no one bothered to measure the thing? Good grief, an experienced driver should be able to see a 4 foot difference in hight.
You can’t assume anything because we all know what happens when you do that. If it was me pulling that load I would have approached that bridge very slow and made sure that I was going to be able to pass under it. Before proceeding.
Any “driver” that doesn’t take the few minutes to pull a tape on something that is over 13′ 6″ high should be in some other sort of profession that doesn’t require any extra thinking.
When I started driving, I was told the driver is ultimately responsible for the load conditions. If the driver pulls a load from a shipper, he is saying the load is secure, safe to move down the road and THE RIGHT LOAD. As far as I know, nothing has changed that over the last 34 years.
Word
How true
That’s right
Hate when I leave my tape measure at home…..
Should have noticed the height difference. Always measure especially when it comes to a modular building.
Especially when a permit is required… Measure, scale, triple check securement, NEVER take someone else’s word on exactly what is on your trailer! The second you start your truck and put it in gear, it’s no longer anyone’s load but yours and you are 100% responsible for it! That’s how it’s been for the last 44 years anyway…
Did the DRIVER and COMPANY even read the permit? Did anybody check the permit to what was listed? NO body’s fault BUT the driver for not CONFIRMING the facts.
If it wasn’t the load you had agreed to…and you still took the load then guess what YOU AGREED TO IT. if I agree to a load get to said destination and it’s not what it’s suppose to be I as a driver /owner have 2 options take it or leave it. If I take it then when it gets on my truck that company has nothing else to do with that load.
I disagree with that. If I’ve spent time, money, and resources to get that load it’s not that easy to walk away from! And it might be a contracted carrier rather than a load contract! It’s possible it needed a different piece of equipment!
Ultimately, the person that is in charge of the truck (driver/loose but holding the steering wheel) is responsible for making sure he is putting the correct load on his trailer, and that the dimension permitted match the dimensions of the load. Where I work, an OD load doesn’t get permitted or loaded until I have put my tape measure to it.
correct me if I am wrong, but I though that oversized loads like this are to have a pilot car with a pole for measuring height.
Under certain conditions, yes. But, the driver is still the boss in that situation. The escort sets his pole height based on the permit. If the driver doesn’t confirm that the load dimensions match the permit, he’s still at fault.
I’m not sure I 100% agree. That tall is hard to measure with a tape. You need a true pole. But if you’re hauling that sort of material. It’s my experience that they usually have 2 or 3 poles. Further, where was the escorts? I have been getting a rash of misquoted sizing on over sizes in every direction and weight! I think they are trying to under cut the rate which is fraud. You would understand if they consistently ship the same modular and the shipper tried to pull a fast one by putting a bigger unit on than agreed! This crap happens all the time! And I think would put some responsibility on the shipper to pay part of the damages. That being said I agree that it’s on the driver to verify and say no even if the permits have to be reordered. And would probably require a new route survey. All thousands of dollars usually!
I once had a boat that was 16′ 2″ tall. My company kept getting me permits for 13’6″ to 15′ – I refused to leave without the proper permit. The right one routed me around 15’2″ bridges that the other (wrong) permits had me routed on.
The driver is ultimately responsible for the load, once it’s on the trailer (or hooked up, if it’s a driveaway). He is responsible for measuring the load, and ensuring it matches the permit. If not, that load doesn’t move until the permit is right.
Thousands compared to $1.8 million? I’d reorder the permits and a route survey.
Why would you pull permits before you’ve physically checked the dimensions? Yes, you’re weight maybe off, but at least get the physical dimensions (LxWxH) right, then head for the nearest scale.
Well said… but that means loss of money and time to the Carrier and the Shipper. Damn Safety, the Carrier is to busy trying to screw the Driver, the Shipper is to busy trying to screw the Carrier and the Driver is to tired of their games to care.
I have a 20 ft high pole to check it with
A few simple steps proline to even loading that trailer would’ve avoided this STUPID mistake. A measurement of the trailer height, added to the measurement of the cargo height = STOP!!!… something is wrong. I don’t care what the shipper tells me, or even what MY boss says re this load. I’ll check things for myself, then double-check just to be sure
Sad to say but it’s the drivers fault. Permit did not match the load. That should’ve been an automatic rejection. Driver should’ve measured the load. It wouldn’t even matter if he had a pole car escort. That escort would’ve been working off the permitted height.
100% driver error. Everything about the load is his responsibility!!!
If the permit stated the load was lower then the driver simply pointed out the shipper was guilty of making a mistake on the permit. It’s the driver’s job to verify that.
From the picture, the load was on a standard size flatbed.
“The load didn’t require a pilot car, but it was required to have an amber beacon and oversize signage.
The concrete girder bridge is 132 feet long, with a clearance of 18.83 feet, McCarthy wrote.
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https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2018/03/21/southbound-glenn-highway-shut-down-at-south-eagle-river-by-truck-that-hit-overpass/
You are right! that load should have been on a double drop so I wonder did the load match the permit had they sent the correct trailer to put it on? Either way still drivers fault..
What a nightmare scenario. I moved a building that way (on a standard trailer) a few times. The trailer was 5’2″ high and the building 10′. I put 15’6″ on my permits just to make sure. One of the bridges said 16’5 but it seemed like we just barely cleared it! I was not required to have a pilot. I just had a rear spotter car. I had a 6′ fiber pole that I could hold on top of my 9’6″ tall truck that I could use if I wasn’t real sure whether it would work.
It’s the never my fault syndrome.
Duh!! a no brainer.
Note to Carrier/Driver:
1) Hire an old, worn-out truck driver to instruct you in the basic, generally accepted carrier business rules, policy, practices.
2) Read the rule book.
3) Read it again.
4) Park your rigs then quit the trucking business.
Any oversize load driver is responsible to verify his load stats and that his permits match them.
Drivers fault plain and simple. Company is also at fault but driver should have said something/measured
So drivers liable to check straps but not height? Coming from a large boat hauler my whole life is about load height.
Anyone check to see if the bridge shrunk???
good one lol
Funny all you clowns are very good at being Monday morning quarterbacks.
So where was the escort vehicle? Why didn’t the escort vehicle catch the problem and radio back to the Driver? Why did the Driver grossly fail to approach this essential bridge (5 hours to go around?), knowing that an accident would cause a huge delay for all motorists. “Bighorn” just changed its name- Broke-Horn Trucking. Awww, the days of good, Drivers, good pay, and less oversight are gone. Make room for the self-driving trucks and watch for some real damage.
It’s the drivers responsibility to check the height of his load. Just like hauling HAZMAT its the drivers responsibility to make sure it is secure.
As noted on every oversized permit issued by the state.
” Permit accuracy is responsibility of the driver”
Heck, the driver, carrier and the customer should just sit down and smoke a bowl.
You put the lime in the coconut and drink a bowl up?
Seems like they probably did… smoke a bowl… If you haul those kind of loads you should have a pole, a tape, or one of these new lazer height detector “thingys”. One laser measures your distance from the side of the trailer (10ft is recommended), second beam measures distance to highest point of load, the “thingy” detects the upward angle. Using geometry, the length of two sides of a triangle and degrees of any one angle, will give you the length of the third side… that’d be the height of the load. Get one, $89 at Lowes.
sounds like the old saying , 6 mos ago I could not spell truck driver, but now I are one !
Once the driver signs for the load he owns it (Not the shipper or the consignee or even the company he drives for) until the consignee signs for it. Driver error period.
I am no longer driving and went back into construction as a General contractor. I just got onto a job that had a house moved from a factory that is a modular home. It took weeks to get the permits from South Dakota and Nebraska. This was a full size 1800 square foot house. So where was the escort and again the height poles to measure the load and the escort with the tag pole? No one was doing CYA!
How bout this, why don’t the deadbeat DOT truck Nazis go to the shipper themselves and measure and check load securement before its released to the driver/carrier for shipment, the effin state gets paid big money for those permits, surely they can send a low life harassment officer out to check on the load before it leaves the yard…..
When the driver signed the shipping manifest he assumed responsibility for the load. Failure to check height and or securement is his fault. Never take what others say is true when your career or safety is on the line. Get out and look!
I guess it was too much trouble to get a height stick out and make sure the load dimensions, rate con & permits all matched.
He might still qualify as a dump truck driver, biggest idiots alive…
& he probably got his license in Maryland where the majority of other illegals got theirs…
Even a 13’6″ load in a trailer with bowed side walls and roof can cause trouble on a 13’6″ bridge. We had a driver for our company pick up a load of furniture preloaded in the rain with that trailer and then took the wrong route due to time constraint. Ended up driving very slowly over the low bridge(still opened roof like tin can) ruined furniture.
Driver is responsible regardless of what permit says. If he wasn’t sure don’t leave shipper.