Low weight bridges

Well I just got home after 3 weeks of OTR training. I had an encounter w/ a very low weight bridge, actually a few of them.

I picked up a load in Louisiana, going to Jonesboro, AR. I requested some directions from dispatch, they told me none were available. Great, so I used the GPS since that's the only way I know how to find something if I don't have any directions and I couldn't reach my customer on the phone.

I exited the interstate and took highway 167/67 all the way up to cr 226. Within a mile of getting on that road, I saw a weight limit bridge up ahead. 17 tons, I'm close to 40 tons and I'm thinking "uh oh". I turn to ask my trainer and he's passed out. Wonderful. I can either slam on my brakes and stop on the bridge, or just cross my fingers and fly across it at 45 mph and hope for the best.

I had been paying attention to my surroundings and I saw lots of trucks around me so I figured maybe the sign was wrong. I flew across it no problem. Keep in mind there was no where for me to turn around and it was late at night so I couldn't see the weight limit on the bridge until I was almost on it. There was no "NO trucks allowed" sign when I made my turn onto this road, and no advance warnings of any type about the low weight bridge. So I had a second to react.

Anyways, I kept going. I saw another bridge at 12 tons, went across it, I kept seeing trucks parked around at different customer's in the area, so I'm wondering why the low weight bridges if this seems like a place that trucks have come down before.

I went across a couple more 12-17 ton bridges and I was almost into town when I saw an.... 8 ton bridge. Luckily these bridges were real small, I could probably only fit one axle on the bridge at a time, so it's not like a full 40tons was on there at once. I made it across fine, but I couldn't help but wonder if that bridge would actually hold up as I drove across it. When I finally got my trainer to wake up an hour later, he said they won't cave in unless I sat there and stopped on it.

I know what I did was wrong, I don't enjoy disobeying road signs, but if I'm out in the middle of nowhere and dispatch provided no directions for me, I couldn't call and ask the customer which is the best route into town, and all I had to rely on was GPS to get me there, I'm unsure what else to do.

I was in training for OTR by the way so I'm not a know it all trucker, I'm really just looking for advice on what to do in future. The best option would probably be "don't go down that way", but if there's no pre-warning ahead of time, I can stop right before the bridge, and back up 2 miles to my last intersection where I came from? that seems almost as dangerous than just crossing it.

It was a really bad situation for me to be in, and having a trainer who was in the bunk the whole time didn't exactly make me feel that confident in what I was attempting.

What would you all have done in that situation?

 

Yeah, our company wanted to run us as a team, that's how they make their money. And I'm not sure I'd have time to stop given how hard the sign was to see late at night and like I said there was no advanced warning until i was almost ontop of the bridge.

Did I really mess up royally or is this just something a new driver goes through out there while OTR?

 

nevermind...

 

Yeah, I plan on doing that next week when I'm running solo. I'm sure I'll be in this situation again.