I-16 in Georgia is closed due to dump truck bed pushing overpass a bit.

@Trashtrucker1707

 

Imagine if you were going over the bridge when he hit it.

 

Georgia better not have any earthquakes, all their bridges would come down. Where are the post-tensioning cables?

 

Good lord! That bridge must not have been welded to the pads.
When they build bridges. The abuttment has rubber blocks with steel plates. The bottom side of the plate has holes where it is anchored to the abuttment. The top side of the plate is attached to the bridge structure. This way when the bridge heats or cools. The structure can expand or contract. Yet those pads also are to resist the damage of above. Some one has some explaining to do.

 

For a science teacher, this would a great visual for a plate tectonics lesson

 

When you guys drive over some of those ancient and dilapidated bridges remember one thing...most of them were built by the lowest bidder.

 

You mean ALL of them are built by the lowest bidder.

 

No, I meant what I said. I've seen clauses in the bids where the bidder has to show a history of similar work. If he's been putting in driveways and sidewalks and other minor projects and gets ambitious and decides to bid on a bridge contract he may not get it.
Also, if a bid comes in ridiculously low it's a red flag that the bidder probably doesn't really know what he's doing.
Also, a bidder with no specific experience may have a hard time getting insurance for a big job and his bonding company might not back him either.

 

Ok, yeah I realize there’s some stipulation’s but 80% of the time its the lowest bidder. Guess the sarcasm didn’t quite come through. But its all good.

 

No problem. And you're right...most of the time it's the lowest bidder and sometimes that sets everything up for a real goat rope.. I remember a road building job in the woods that had to be re-done completely three times before they got a contractor who knew what he was doing.
That was when giving contract priority to minority owned companies, female owned companies, and companies with less than fifty employees, was the latest brainstorm from Washington
Yeah, Federal job. Forest Service and BLM working together. Trying to, anyway.
The road was necessary for fire season as it provided access to one side of a canyon and several water holes. Our company was doing the water holes.
After the third contractor had given up the Feds came to us and asked what we'd charge to fix the mistakes and finish the road. We told them the only way we'd touch it was cost plus. Big plus. They went ballistic but eventually they agreed because by then they were out of options.
We had the road finished in about a month and they screamed bloody murder about the cost. We told them that it wasn't our fault that they let the bid to city kids, flat landers, and incompetent morons with equipment that might have been fine for digging up a tomato field in Woodland but wasn't worth spit in the mountains, and completely ignored the bids of local, well equipped, and experienced companies.
The next year the language in the bid proposals was a little different. Not much, but we took it as a good sign.