You find yourself at a low bridge - now what?

It's WTF green, if it's the same truck.

 

3 pages of talk about approaching a low bridge and no one post the famous video yet?

^_^ well guess I would then

 

Been there done that kid. New Joisey. Backed up at least 1/8 mile. Be care ful your not going too fast too, so you can stop. I noticed a conspicuous absence of traffic. As I got near the last place where I could have turned off, a LadyBear had traffic stopped. I apologized, told her I saw no warning. She said no problem, sign had been knocked down.

Don't ever push a bad situation EVER. Weight bridges, RR crossings, if it say no U Turn - it means no F- U Turn, spend the time to get yourself straitened out, the little time lost is nothing. Always keep your head, you'll be ok.
S*** happens. Even a citation is better than a major F/U or causing an accident.

 

Double post

 

So, that explains it. When I first started driving back in 95, they sent me to NYC for some reason. I was coming up on a bridge that was 12'9". I was going too fast to stop so I just prepared for the impact. No impact, thought God helped me out or something and kept going. Now I know, the bridges are marked wrong.

 

Exactly. You stop,.. pull over and get out of traffic as safe as you can. If not possible,.. you stop and put out your triangles,.. and call state police for assistance.

I've had to do this in Boston. 3 blocks from my delivery turned and there was a pedestrian bridge at 12ft. No where to safely turn around or reverse on my own. Just way to much traffic. Sat for almost 2 hours before police assistance came. Had to reverse back out the way I came in. Thanked them for helping me. They said no,.. thank you for not hitting our bridge.

Hurst

 

I hear you on this one.

As a precaution I use a mouth guard in New York.

 

Nyc subtracts from the real clearance to allow room for snow pack on the road. Its been well over a decade since i ran up that way regularly enough to remember the exact amount, but I'm thinking it's an even foot.

 

Never had that experience in Boston but back when i started interstate trucking i had to call the Chicago PD so often i bet that switch board operator knew me by name. I'm fairly certain that the radio call went something like this. "dispatch to car 49. O'reilly are you there? That dumb ### kid from Ohio got lost again and found another bridge".

 

LOL

My GPS is pretty good with the bridges in Chicago. There are a few in the 12ft range to watch out for. Never found myself heading to one unless my delivery was on that street and I wasnt needing to go under it.

Something about pedestrian bridges that fall short,.. that or it was a newer bridge not in the data base. I saw the bridge,.. it was a 4 lane street. But the sign was on the stairs going up. I thought well thats a stupid place for a bridge height sign. No warning signs on the off streets leading to it. Just a surprise,.. now what? I was delivering there to the newspaper.

I came across one in Tenn on a back road few year back. They had detoured people off one road because of road work. I took it upon myself to take a 'short cut' thinking I could avoid the traffic in front of me. Ended up having to back up 1/2 mi and then back into a farmers driveway to get turned around. Luckily the road was pretty quiet with no other traffic. Ended up back in the traffic I was trying to avoid. Wasted an hour trying to save 10 mins. LOL

EDIT:

Heres one for you,.. mark this up as dumb tired trucker.

In PA I turned onto a street and maybe 800ft was a bridge and it looked like a nice sturdy bridge,.. about 50 ft before the bridge was a sign that said no trucks over 10 tons. Absolutely no possible way to get turned around and I did not feel comfortable backing out into the street I turned off from with out being able to see traffic coming. So I called state police for assistance.

Long story short,.. the sign was a township sign for the road,.. not the bridge. I had a delivery 1 mile down the road and was allowed to proceed.

Doh.


Hurst