Skip the drug test, go right to IQ test
About every other year at this bridge on Onondaga Lake Parkway road in Syracuse NY some truck hits that bridge. There are numerous signs and warning lights and even a laser to detect if your truck is too high…
Parkway warning system stops hundreds: Why do some truckers ignore it? - syracuse.com
Is this why DIY tractor trailer driving is frowned upon?
It’s a symptom of it being hard to find qualified drivers.
Truck driving schools are constantly churning out graduates to try to keep up with demand for long-haul truck drivers, and trucking companies would rather hire an inexperienced driver than pay an experienced driver, but because of the lack of supply, experienced drivers can still find work.
I’d wager that at least 80% of all collisions involving tractor trailers are caused by inexperienced drivers who have been working solo for less than a year, and that accident will give the company an excuse not to increase what they pay the driver. That’s why a lot of drivers quit after their first year. If their raise is going to be postponed by a year (assuming you’re not in another collision, which could be someone else’s fault, but could still cost you your raise), the driver might have a better paying job waiting for him at home, or a job with a more realistic opportunity for raises.
How would you know that?
OK, OK, I know about your past life as a truck driver. You’d know.
I was under the possibly wrong assumption that truck guidance systems took into account truck height and bridge height.
I’ve been tuning into a guy with an 84 Peterbilt hauling fire trucks from Wisconsin to Delaware. He was grumbling because coming back they had some light snow on the Pennsylvania portion of I 70 and had closed the road to empty trucks. The gist of it seems to be because there are so many truckers that don’t know how to drive anymore, they closed the road for everyone’s safety. Little itty bitty tiny bit of snow on the ground.
This one is in my neck of the woods. The 11’4" clearance is misleading though. One cannot tell from the pic but there is a roughly 12" deep dip under the bridge. The asphalt climbs sharply heading west and slightly going east. This means when a tractor trailer goes underneath the rear wheels of the tractor are on one side of the dip and the trailer tires are on the other. This essentially raises the entire rig up artificially. This carnage has been going on for 50 years and multiple signs, flashing lights, and warnings painted on the pavement accomplished nada. Painting the shark eyes and teeth did nothing as drivers ignored it all and still do.
I imagine this bridge has cost a lot of drivers their jobs.
Part of the problem in the picture is that 4 and a half meters is only 14’ 91/4 inches.
As others have expressed, actual pay is down and working conditions are horriblemfor truckers.
There are navigation systems designed for truckers but they are expensive and bulky. Most of the guys running into bridges are using free cell phone navigation apps that don’t know or care about bridges or truck routes.
There is a low bridge on Young Street in the city of Tonawanda thetgets hit regularly. It is under 12" tall and the city has put up large warning signs and flashing lights and removed the route from truck route designation and yet it still keeps getting hit because if you are coming from Niagara falls or Notht Tonawanda and not taking the Thruway across Grand Island, a regular gps or a cell phone will send you down Young street if you are going to points east. Some guys hit the bridge which is usually a foot and a half below the roof of the trailer and try to power through.breaking the trailer in half!
Claims a Box truck or semi every week, can’t grade the road under it any lower.
You can get a trucker navigation app on your smart phone.
‎TruckMap - Truck GPS Routes on the App Store (apple.com)
‎SmartTruckRoute: Truck GPS on the App Store (apple.com)
‎Trucker Path: Truck GPS & Maps on the App Store (apple.com)
This one in Durham NC, has its own website:
They even raised the overpass 8 inches and people still hit it.
Since I don’t feel the need for a cell phone let alone a smartphone or an Iphone, I did not know that. I see that the 3 you listed were at the apple app store, are they only for iphones? iphones are pricey, is there a cost to the apps? Some of these non union jobs can pay less than minimum wage because they don’t pay for waiting and just pa a low or no hourly rate for delivery, waiting border crossing tieups etc.
Like I said before, we have a similar bridge that still gets hit once a year or so. The RR refuses to regrade and raise the bridge. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only reasonable solution is to regrade the road. It’s a problem though because it already is a low point and would collect water, plus the sidewalks, curbs, and adjacent lawns. Still seems like no amount of flashing lights or signage does the job. The last one had a whole load of live turkeys on the way to the turkey plant. Luckily they all had their own cages so it wasn’t like turkeys running around the neighborhood. Still I’d Iike to see it happen just once.
Why should the RR regrade or raise the bridge?
They aren’t the ones with the problem,
It’s the city, county or state road that is crossing RR property that has the problem.
The RR could tell the city, county or state to close the road, we’re not going to allow you to cross our property here anymore.
No…there are android apps also. Pretty much any app on the IPhone is also available on Android. Especially now since you can use ONE development tool and deploy to the different platforms.
As for cost…it’s considerably cheaper then the device you were talking about.
My personal policy is that I won’t pay for apps, and yet, I have a lot of them on my Android-based Samsung Galaxy S-5. The app that I found particularly useful at the height of the pandemic is one from my bank that allows me to deposit checks from the comfort of my home, simply by taking a pic and submitting it via the bank’s app.
Unfortunately, after a few months, the bank upgraded their app and the operating system on my now-ancient phone could no longer interface with the bank’s app.
Later this month, I am going to upgrade to the latest model Samsung, the S21. In addition to much better resolution with photos and much longer battery life, it has the latest Android operating system, and that will allow me to use the bank’s app once again, thus saving some trips to the bank.
One of the apps is free…But even still they are not that expensive.
One of the only apps I ever bought was GPS for golf. Has tens of thousands of golf courses you can download for free. And it interfaces with my Apple Watch. Very nice app. Well worth the $4/yr cost.
When in Boston mass driving down Storrow drive-it’s referred to getting “Storrowed”