All of the videos from March and April, the sign isn’t going off for some reason. There are like 3 crashes from April 9th alone. They must have fixed it at some point since in the May 11th crash it’s working.
Also, I FEEL SO SEEN with this post. Thanks @markfrauenfelder!
Also also, how could I forget:
Oh man it’s worse if the sign is broken, because if you know it’s there and you’re looking for it, you’d probably think you were safe when it doesn’t trigger.
It’s evident – based on the April 9th videos, at the very least – that the sign really does work at least a little. I have never seen 3 crashes reported in one day.
Correction: None of the days had 3 crashes reporting, but between March 31 and April 9 (the dates of the videos where the sign wasn’t working) there were six (!), two on the 31st and two on the 9th. For comparison, the average bridge appetite over the lifetime of the YouTube records has been about 1 crash per month.
I understand the urge to give these drivers the benefit of the doubt, but if you don’t know the height of the vehicle you’re driving, especially if it’s taller than the average passenger vehicle, and especially especially if it’s a commercial vehicle, you shouldn’t be driving it. Period.
AKA “11-foot-8-plus-8” or “11-foot-8” for short. Just roll with it.
This.
I was driving a 26’ U-Haul once and about a half mile before the bridge I remembered it being there. I looked at the inside of the cab and it said something like 12’ clearance. The sign coming up to the bridge said 12’ 8" clearance. Since the road dip a little I got in the far right lane and slowed down to about 5 mph as my buttock clenched tightly. I let out a sight of relief as I made it through undamaged.
Dude/dudette really fucked it up.
Well, better an underdeclared aperture size than an overdeclared one, I guess. 
Won’t someone think of the poor truck drivers who are lacking situational awareness, knowledge about the height of their vehicles, aren’t paying attention to street signage, are unaware of the location of this well known bridge, and who are just not generally driving with caution to avoid issues like this?! If only they could have done something to prevent this!
If humans are having this difficulty with vehicle heights (beyond automobiles and most SUVs). Imagine how an autonomous vehicles would deal with these “failure modes.”
(This includes the twisted metal fragments left behind after such a collision.)
Going forward I think that navigation apps should soon ask user to “Input vehicle height and length” before offering navigation.
Once a few years ago, after bicycling 50 miles in 90 degree F heat, Mr. Linkey and I were a little out of it. We pulled into a parking garage in town, totally forgetting about our bikes up on the roof. It made some scary noises, and we were quite chagrined, but neither of us thought for one second that it was anyone’s fault but our own. (Bikes were mostly okay, thanks to our slow speed and the warning bar thingy)
So I’m continually surprised by this bridge’s knack for getting so many people to try to find fault in anyone BUT the drivers, given all the warnings and signage.
I’m kind of surprised no one has pitched a tv series with this bridge as the main character 
There is the one show, but the programming is somewhat irregular and it’s only available on YouTube (with occasional rebroadcasts on BB).
… and a very small investment via Patreon has had enormous returns, in terms of early access to videos like this and other exclusives, even after the 8” expansion, which I (wrongly) lassumed would be the end of an era of fun.
thank you!
Gregson is the worst.
This truck is an extreme case for testing the effectiveness of the warning sign. It’s only a few inches too high, pretty much only at the crane hinge at the extreme rear of the vehicle. That would result in a small enough detector pulse, especially when the truck is going that fast, that the signal conditioning circuitry may have filtered it out as noise.
That said, the crane driver’s job is to pay attention to vehicle height and approach bridges cautiously.
That’s what I thought too, but the next 5 crashes also don’t trigger the sign. It’s pretty clear there was a malfunction for a period of some 10 days (or maybe longer – hard to say).
Posts here can be edited after they’re posted, unlike at many other sites.
Clearly the solution is to have the road go over the bridge!
No need to build a second bridge; a ramp will suffice. The youtube channel will be much more interesting.
