"OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN" is almost comical in it's dangerous ambiguity. My first parse is "if you were over height, you would have to turn", not "you, yes, you! Stop! Now!".
I'd take a bet that the person who choose that wording wanted the accidents to continue but also have plausible deniability because they did do "something".
That is exactly what it means though, they don't want everyone to stop just overheight vehicles. What do you want the sign to do? Encourage everyone to stop?
It has a sensor and only goes off for overheight vehicles. If you see it come up, you will hit the bridge if you continue straight, but it's worded too like a generic warning to all vehicles: which is the parse you have also apparently made.
Better wording would be "Overheight! Do not proceed under bridge!". If you have space: "you are overheight!" or "overheight vehicle detected!"
Add the number plate with an ANPR camera for bonus "this means you" (it also triggers a red light phase whenever it sees an over-height vehicle, so you will have time to read it). And yes, this is possible, I've seen supermarkets flash your number plate at you as you enter to warn you the parking times are being recorded.
I see what you mean, you're probably right that it would help, but honestly I just don't think the people hitting it are reading it in the first place. It doesn't light up until they're at the intersection, at which point they're either very focused on the light or the traffic, and definitely not looking way above even the yellow bar. Most people seem to be driving rentals, and in their case they're just not thinking about the size of their vehicle, and the rest have gone under a thousand bridges that look to the unfocused eye just as tall, so they're not worried about it at all. What they really need is probably just something that hangs at that height in front of it so you can hear it bang off of your car with minimal damage before you actually hit the bridge, and push the intersection further away from the bridge so there's more time to look at the signs.
They've put up extra height bars and they've added a blinking light using a sensor for warning overheight trucks (OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN) which shows to an extra long red light. I also believe they've lowered the road a little bit, but there's only so much they can do.
Yeah. I think that sign would be more effective if both lines were swapped: "Must Turn, Overheight" rather than Overheight Must Turn". It sounds like a generic warning, I bet these truck drivers don't think it's specifically about them.
The sign that warns driver does actually blink though, for this exact reason. I believe there's a separate electronic sign further up the road as well that flicks on when a vehicle triggers the sensor. Even without all that, an educated driver should just see the sign on the tunnel and determine their truck doesn't fit...
Funnily enough, blinking taillights are actually banned here because it's very difficult to guage distance and speed from a blinking tail light.
It always amazes me that truck rentals like we see in a few videos on that site are legal, like with a normal license. Every time I’ve rented one all I can think of “I can’t believe they trusted me with this thing that I drive once every few years at best”. I guess they don’t care, they have insurance but still.
Whenever I see someone else diving one of these I give them a very wide berth and assume they have no idea what they are doing since they normally don’t.
I once reserved a 20 footer, and at the last minute they called me and asked me if I would take a 26 footer instead. Man, I didn't know what I was getting into. That is a whole different beast than the standard 20 footer. Never again - what a pain in the ass that was - every aspect of it was a hassle. The whole time I was wondering how the hell it was legal for me to be driving that thing around.
26 footers are terrible. I’ll gladly tow a massive trailer and it’s much easier to position a trailer. In fact it’s easier with longer trailers over something like a jet ski trailer.
A roommate in college worked for Lowe’s installing appliances off a 26 footer. He crashed into things and cars once a month. After 9 times they said don’t get a 10th, luckily he changed jobs.
Same, I got the Big One when I was moving out of SF. Driving that monster around town (and parking right on lower Haight where my apartment was) is not something I would ever willingly do again.
is that the one with "grandma's attic"? I have never driven a truck with a (manual) transmission that was older than me until I drove one. I manage to parallel park it near the panhandle in a two-car space. I was proud (still am!)
> I guess they don’t care, they have insurance but still.
Of course they care; even big companies have to fight with their insurance companies and often don't get fully compensated.
As a general statement, the overwhelming majority of renters pay their money and return the truck without any issue. The rare accident is costly, but it's paid for mostly through rental fees rather than insurance.
I was once offered a job and asked, "Can you drive a truck?" Sure, no problem. I show up for the _cross-country_ drive and it's a 28' box truck with a manual transmission. Thankfully, I had driven a manual car before and there was a primary (I was the 2nd) driver to help me through the particulars of the box truck.
Thousands of miles back and forth across the country over 3 months, never a driving incident.
> Whenever I see someone else diving one of these I give them a very wide berth and assume they have no idea what they are doing since they normally don’t.
I think you over-estimate the skill of the drivers of sedans and SUVs and everything else. Most drivers are pretty awful, even in cars they drive every day.
See also: Hilariously outsized RV's that any person can hop behind the wheel of with no extra training or license requirements. I swear some are the size of Greyhound busses now.
It has dozens of warning signs, an overhead gantry with rubber paddles that hit a high vehicle's roof, flashing lights and still gets hit approximately once a month.
The road there is stuck. Raising the railway, which has been done once already, is very expensive. Lowering the road would require moving a sewer main, which is a fairly delicate and also expensive job. Both railway and sewer are very old and substantially pre-date the modern assumption that you can just drive trucks wherever you want as if that's some basic element of civilisation rather than a weird temporary glitch.
At some point it becomes cheaper to install a lift pump and a pressurized section for the sewage than to constantly have crashes to clean up and disrupt service.
[1] http://11foot8.com/