(I have no idea what big penny means.)

  • @[email protected]
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    173
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    3 months ago

    The bridge is on S Pennsylvania Ave in Lansing, MI, hence “Penny”. Construction has routed more people through there than normal lately increasing the bridge’s hunger.

    If there’s one thing people that rent trucks or RVs never learn, it’s the height of their vehicle (and that yes the flashing overheight lights are in fact for you).

    Source: Used to live near there.

    • @[email protected]
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      173 months ago

      They’ll follow Google maps anywhere blindly. Rational thinking is turned off.

      That’s how people drove into a lake, under a train, het themselves stuck in too narrow streets, arrive on the wrong country and so on.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        This bridge has been stupid low for decades, and it’s a main artery from downtown to the (e hospital and) highway. As of the last time I drove past it, the advance warnings signs didn’t seem adequate to me.

    • @[email protected]
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      93 months ago

      it’s important to know your motorhome’s height, how else are you supposed to get drive-thru food?

  • toofpic
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    863 months ago

    “Fools bridge” from Saint-Petersburg saying hi!
    It’s just below the height of the most popular small truck, Gazelle - despite the poster saying: “It’s low, Gazelle doesn’t fit” (in addition to a normal sign), drivers keep checking that.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        I read the site but couldn’t find why the sign says 12’4 if it’s really 11’8"?

        Edit: Thanks for all the answers everyone. Now the 11’8"+8" makes so much more sense.

        • @[email protected]
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          113 months ago

          IIRC, they didn’t raise it because of the crashes. It’s a privately owned rail line and they don’t care about that because the bridge itself wasn’t being damaged. It needed to be renovated anyway so they raised it to be level with the nearby at-grade crossing while they were at it.

          • Captain Aggravated
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            23 months ago

            Yeah the bridge itself wasn’t being damaged because they installed a goddamn I-beam in front of it as a crash barrier.

            • @[email protected]
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              33 months ago

              They won’t because there is an old sewer main that runs underneath and according to the town is prohibitively expensive to reconcile all of that with the bridge lowering.

              The rail line won’t increase the height anymore because then it will cause a hump in the train tracks there.

  • @[email protected]
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    623 months ago

    The fact that 22 of those 75 were just this year reinforces my suspicion that drivers have been getting enormously worse recently.

    • @[email protected]
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      163 months ago

      I cycle a lot around my city and no cap I believe that they fucking gift driver licenses in cereal boxes nowadays.

      I cannot begin to describe the enormous stupidity one can found on the road.

      (And not only drivers, electric scooters are almost worse. At least when I have an accident with them they are the ones who take the worst part).

    • Captain Aggravated
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      33 months ago

      I haven’t done an actual statistical analysis, but relying on my human over-ability to notice patterns and a tendency to laugh at the 11’8" bridge channel on Youtube (said bridge is located in Durham NC and I’m a lowercase t tarheel through and through), most of the trucks that hit the bridge’s crash barrier are Ryder, Penske or Enterprise box trucks, which are rental vehicles available, for reasons completely beyond my comprehension, to anyone with a Class C driver’s license in the state of North Carolina. Also over-represented are RVs that have their rooftop air conditioners scraped off. The vast majority of drivers that hit the 11’8" bridge are amateurs driving a vehicle significantly larger than they’re used to with an absolute height significantly taller than the roof of the cab.

      It’s the very occasional semi truck that leads to the most spectacular, and baffling, crashes. They don’t rent articulated trucks to just anyone over 23 with a credit card.

  • Blaster M
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    233 months ago

    If only there was a conveniently placed security camera nearby that could show us these accidents…

  • @[email protected]
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    213 months ago

    We’ve got one of those in my town. The height is only 10’ 8", and the road makes a V going under the tracks. Long wheelbase trucks might make it through until the front wheels start going up the hill on the other side.

    • @[email protected]
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      43 months ago

      There’s a train bridge like that in my hometown, but it’s directly over the base of a fairly steep hill. Pretty much anything bigger than a work van is likely to hit it, and I’ve seen a couple of box trucks with the top 6 inches or so of their roof peeled back like a half-open can of sardines.

  • @[email protected]
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    183 months ago

    Boston has a whole road that is the physical manifestation of Chaos.

    Storrow Drive. Runs along the Charles and is basically the northern border of the city. It has many underpasses, most of which are low enough to munch moving trucks. Every year around late Aug early Sept when college kids are moving in a few trucks get Storrow’d. It’s refered to as The Storrowing. It’s a fun time to need to get around the city.

    Honestly Storrow is one of the scariest roads in New England, and I used to drive every day to and from work almost the entire length of Memorial which is on the opposite bank of the Charles which is a NARROW four lane road (2*2), with a speed limit that is both probably too high and completely ignored, on top of being almost eternally congested. How I didn’t see a horrible wreck every day confuses me still.

    tl;Dr: Don’t drive in Boston unless your ready for some fun (I love the chaos)

    • Bahnd Rollard
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      53 months ago

      Its even worse during Allston Xmas, the city in its infinite wisdom decided that most leases end on the same day. All the schools also have the new semester start right around the same time, and all the new students arrive within that few day window.

      Lets paint this picture, the city is in panic mode as the student population makes up ~25% of the population of Boston, and they are all returning for the new semester. They likely have just moved as their old lease is up and their new one starts on the same day. They will take all of their worldly possessions and put them into the back of their friends sedan and drive to their new place, anything that wont fit is left on the curb. The previous tenant of the new place did the exact same thing. They put all the things they care for into their new place and decide which furniture from the previous tenant is good enough and put it back inside. Anything left on the curb by ~4 PM is fair game, and will be disposed of by the city next time the collect trash

      The freshmen, whos parents are sending their spawn to MIT or BU have a u-haul (that they dont know the height of) carrying all their worldly possions, dispite their tiny dorm not having the room for it (and being told this repeatedly by the school). All it takes is one of these muppets to not pay attention and one of the major arteries into the city is blocked. Traffic will back up for miles, non-masshole drivers operating things that should require a CDL are trying to take short-cuts navigating the narrow boston city roads in small box trucks and every residential street will be a mass of double parked cars as the city collectivly shuffles the entire student population in a day.

      Chaos is an understatement (its a lot of fun to watch).

    • @[email protected]
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      73 months ago

      Yeah I’m pretty sure it’s the same bridge. It’s kinda internet famous. They raised the bridge a little since that video, but it still peels the tops off of trucks.

      • @[email protected]
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        33 months ago

        I don’t think it is right? The environment looks completely different and the one in the post is 12", which the 11"8 (or now 12"4) never was.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        No they are not the same bridge. Notice one is 12’ 0’’ and the other is the famous 11’8’’ now the 12’4’’

    • @[email protected]
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      23 months ago

      That’s 11’8", probably the most famous can opener there is. Although they recently raised the bridge height to make it line up better or something, which resulted in it becoming 12’4". It’s still opens a few cans sometimes though.

  • @[email protected]
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    153 months ago

    The problem is using feet to measure it. Whose feet? What size? Shoed or bare? So many possibilities involving feet, there’s no real way of crossing under this safely.

  • @[email protected]
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    123 months ago

    (I have no idea what big penny means.)

    It’s a reference to how expensive it will be to repair the trucks.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 months ago

      It does seem more effective to place some other form of markers like metal poles down up higher with bells hanging on fishing line or some shit, if you hit the bells, you’d hit the bridge. Place them 50 yards before the bridge

      • @[email protected]
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        43 months ago

        That’s how it’s done in my country. If you hear the dangly bits scraping on the roof of your truck, you won’t fit.

  • @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    A city I used to live in had a bridge like this in a major inner-city commercial area just outside the CBD. Would cause havoc for commuters because the bridge was for the southern train lines entering the CBD and was on a busy road entering an major arterial.

    All the traffic got held up and diverted, the trains couldn’t run until engineers inspected the bridge.

    • @[email protected]
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      23 months ago

      Yeah, I thought how frustrating that must be for the people who live there if that road is blocked time and time again because of the same thing.

  • linuxgator
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    103 months ago

    Reminds me of a bridge that the road passing under got resurfaced and raised a few inches but the signs never got changed. After a truck got stuck, at least they fixed the sign.