Even though they raised the canopener bridge, it's still claiming victims

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/06/even-though-they-raised-the-ca.html

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Whom the Gods would destroy, they first drive mad – probably for our entertainment.

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12’4" - is that the clearance of the bridge itself, or the orange stop bar?

Is the flashing warning sign new as well?

They could have let some air out of the tires to get under.

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Maybe they could add a circus or parade to indicate you are over the height. Maybe a team of clowns. There’s no limit to the amount of stimulus that can be added! Clearly the problem is “not enough” instead of “too much”, right?

That city needs a human factors -expert- novice.

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…under the Can-Opener Bridge.

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The fancy sign went into service on May 12, 2016, and the first truck plowed into it after that was on July 7, less than two months afterward. By comparison, after raising the bridge, it took less than a month for the bridge to take its first nibble, and just under two months for it to do some noticeable damage.

One notes with this video that the previously pristine-looking paint job on the new crash beam has a dark spot on it now.

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Is there a way to just copy and paste whole threads in Discourse? Could save us a lot of time.

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We never actually see the driver of these trucks :thinking:

Have we considered the possibility that the guy who runs this cam is maintaining website traffic by occasionally renting trucks to drive into the bridge?

The truth is out there.

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If I remember right, and it hasn’t changed with the bridge raising, it’s the bar. They have it slightly lower than the bridge so they don’t have to constantly repair the bridge when the idiots drive into it.

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You can try to fix the bridge, but you can’t fix the idiot drivers.

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*sighs

Why isn’t completely disallowing trucks to use that particular underpass an option, again?

As many times as we’ve rehashed this exact same type of conversation regarding the Can-Opener, someone must have suggested it…

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Fairly certain by now the Can-Opener is the subject of more redundant strategic analysis than the Battle of Waterloo. :smirk:

z813

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I think the guy with the cams goes out every night and sprays another millimeter of coating on the road.

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I have just the thing.

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image

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That’s usually how it works- the idiots destroy the sacrificial beam rather than damage the bridge, which is significantly harder to repair.

You mean, the beam destroys the idiots’ truck, I think. Last crash beam didn’t get replaced until they lifted the bridge.

Incidentally, the height of the bridge and the height of the beam are essentially the same, though maybe the bridge is a skosh higher. There have definitely been vehicles that plowed under the beam only to end up shaking the bridge through minor subsequent impact.

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