A site documenting trucks hitting a low railroad bridge in Durham, North Carolina, with video, an FAQ, and updates on the crashes.
HN commenters cite it as a long-running example of drivers ignoring signage and following car GPS, and say it shows how often trucks hit the bridge.
" it’s not practical here. There are many overheight trucks that have to be able to drive right up to the bridge and turn onto Peabody St. in order to deliver supplies to several restaurants. Making Peabody St inaccessible from Gregson St would make the restaurant owners and the delivery drivers very unhappy." [1]
at the end of the it seems most of the trucks are often Rental Trucks drive by people that likely should not be driving a large truck in the first place. In the US you do not need a CDL or special endorsement to rent many of these UHaul type trucks since they do not have Air Brakes, all you need is a normal operators license.
[1]http://11foot8.com/11foot8-faq/
> 4. I'm not a trucker, nor an SUV driver, but something to account for high-height vehicles could be useful for many.
This exact issue causes a fair number of trucks to hit this one specific bridge [0] in Durham, NC. Blindly following a GPS meant for cars when you have a tall vehicle is a recipe for disaster.
[0] http://11foot8.com/
[1] http://championtrucklines.com/latest-news/11foot8-bridge-crash-compilation/
[2] http://chapelboro.com/news/news-around-town/durham-can-opener-bridge-claims-another-victim
[3] http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/threads/11-foot-8-the-canopener-bridge.210135/
There’s a legendary bridge in North Carolina that, fortunately, is not threatened by truck drivers. Rather, it is the threat to improperly driven trucks, and is affectionately known as the “Can Opener”: http://11foot8.com/
I’ve been watching these videos for years and despite adding increasingly prominent warnings and raising the bridge itself eight extra inches, idiots—often in Penske rental trucks—will still drive into the bridge and peel off the top of their box truck.
A truck GPS is extremely helpful if you're driving a commercial vehicle any appreciable distance in an unfamiliar place. They include many additional data points in routing: vehicle height for overpass clearance, vehicle weight for bridges, "No Trucks"/"Passenger Cars Only"/"No Commercial Vehicles" restrictions etc. You can get yourself into hot water if you're following car GPS directions with even a mid-sized U-Haul. See: http://11foot8.com
That's answered by the FAQ: http://11foot8.com/11foot8-faq/
> Can’t the road be lowered?
> That would be prohibitively expensive because a sewer main runs just a few feet below the road bed. That sewer main also dates back about a hundred years and, again, at the time there were no real standards for minimum clearance for railroad underpasses.
Sounds similar to the famous 8 ft 11 in bridge [1] (since raised to 12 ft 4 in, but still racking up victims). 177 crashes since 2008, most of them caught on camera at that site.
[1] http://11foot8.com/