Trucker takes too-tall rig through tunnel

Lets all do a GROUP DUH.......how could you NOT know you were to tall????, given the proper markings/warnings of height are in place?

 

No doubt. But there's always one moron...

Back In The Day, I was driving for a MN-based company and stopped off at their terminal in the DFW area. One of the roads out of the terminal forks--one side's OK, one side's 11'3". About 50 people felt the need to warn me about the low-clearance. Finally I asked what the story was.

Turns out a brand-new driver--hadn't even got his first load yet--rolled out of there bobtail and ripped off the top of his IH 9700 Condo. This was a cabover, for heavens' sakes--11'3" would barely clear the top of a short guy's head!! But there's always one idiot who's responsible for the billion warning stickers plastered to everything in the world.

 

Here is my true story of what happened to me on the lincoln tunnel issue. I called for directions to where the shipper was at,Iwas told to use the tunnel,I had a rr container on,low set fifth wheel with lopros,I went thru the whole thing no problem,nothing hitting at all. I got lost and asked some firefighters at a fire station how to find this place,They told me and I wrote it all down,about a half hour later after many stoplights I came by those guys again,I blew the air horn at them,they were laughing their heads off,giving me the wrong directions on purpose,anyhow,I found myself going back out of the tunnel,upon entering a ny cop blew a whistle and stopped me,he gave me holy hell,and said he wasn't there for his health,he then had me back up and park and took my license with him,he left me there for an hour and a half,finally came back with my license and a 150 dollar ticket,I tried to explain to him that i had already cleared that tunnel,but,he would not listen,by the time he came back i threw all my maps and papers on the floor of that single stack mack and said I will never go thru there again and i lived up to that promise. I could not find out why a cop would be on one end and not on the other end,both are the same height,he was using a measuring stick on the trucks to make sure they would clear the tunnel. I wanted to quit driving truck that day,but,upon cooling off,and finally finding the shipper everything was better. Turned out I had driven by the place twice and the shipper thought I was coming from the east and not from the west. That was one of my worsts days of trucking in northeast.

 

I was at a gas station convenience store when I heard the sound of steel crunching. I went out to find a truck wedged under a 12" railroad bridge. The driver torn the top of the trailer back like a sardine can. I said to the driver.......I guess that warning sign for low clearance didn't give him a clue that he wouldn't fit under the bridge.

 

This is an excellent example of what we have to work with as an industry. My primary job as Assistant Safety Director is to road test new hires. With the continued blind eye that the Administration (President,Vice-president,Operations,Driver Managers )in our Companies turn toward the problem of 1.low pay,2.low miles,3.lack of respect and the BIG ONE-TELLING THE TRUTH,the more we are going to hear of these bone-headed mistakes. If we do not change the way we do business and pay the men and women that that sacrifice there home time as well as their very safety to do an at best difficult and thankless job we are in very serious trouble as an industry. A lot of problems would go away on there own if there was decent pay and benifits. There would be no reason to run over your hours to make a living if the pay structure was not based on cents-per-mile or for that matter drivers weren't lied to about delivery times. Why stay in this industry and gain knowledge and experience when you are paid the same as someone that just started driving. Pay should depend on experiece in this job just like it does in any other. Until this is fixed industry-wide how can we expect to get anything approaching a professinal caliber driver. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR !!!!!

 

I was a trainer for for one company, which shall remain nameless. Out of all my newbie drivers, I only had one that was not a good candidate for a solo driver. I went to the head of the training department, and personally explained why I thought this person was not fit to drive. I actually believed this guy was a danger to the general public. They said no problem we will handle it, we don't wont those kind of drivers.

It was 15 minutes later when I saw that driver leaving with his first load. I am no longer with that company or a trainer. The driver I discussed eventually wiped out a guard shack with a 53' trailer. The guard had to crawl out of a window to escape the building. Long story short he didn't last a month, and racked up accidents left and right.

If a company willfully allows that kind of driver to operate their equipment I have no use for them, and they WILL get what they deserve. Thank God he didn't kill anyone.

 

I live in a small one light town in Ohio, on the way out of town heading up the back roads there is a bridge. It is marked 10' and I have seen a few things get stuck under it. The best was a straight truck whose cab was short and cleared then the box behind him got jammed under the bridge.