Height restriction signs aren’t just a suggestion

MSNBC ^ | June 2, 2007 | MSNBC

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Trucker sheers off roof driving too-big-rig length of Lincoln Tunnel

NEW YORK - A truck driver whose rig was 6 inches too tall for the Lincoln Tunnel drove its entire 1.5-mile length, peeling the trailer’s roof completely and ripping off decorative ceiling tiles.

Flashing signs and officers using a loudspeaker had warned the driver, and it was unclear why he didn’t heed them, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the tunnel.

“He misjudged the height of the tunnel, and once he was inside it he didn’t realize the damage he was doing,” said Roy Guzman, the safety director of the trucker’s employer, U.S.A. Logistics Carriers of McAllen, Texas.

The driver, from Texas, was charged with nine misdemeanor moving violations.

The central tube of three in the tunnel heading into Manhattan was closed for about 90 minutes after the accident early Thursday, but reopened just before the morning rush hour.

On the rare occasions when other trucks have scraped the tunnel’s ceiling, the drivers have stopped, Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said. Police then let air out of the trucks’ tires, so the rigs can be backed out.

[gas0linealley]

You would have to know the specifics. For instance, single axle box trucks often are equipped with conventional leaf springs, which do lower under load. However, the rig in the photo accompanying this story is most likely riding on air bags. They have control valves to maintain a preset height.

I wrote “highway...” to differentiate between local delivery trucks, and the kind used for long haul work, which is the kind that was involved in the accident.

Additionally, looking at the photo it is possible to see the cargo in the trailer...it wasn’t empty.

[gas0linealley]

Do you drive a big rig in NYC?

[Doohickey]

Funny line, but it looks like there’s stuff in there.

[SamAdams76]

I was in a vehicle that broke down on I-95 in the Bronx back in the 1980s. We walked to a pay phone (no cell phones back then) to call Triple-A for a tow. By the time we got back to our vehicle, about an hour later, it was up on blocks, the windows were smashed out and the stereo and floor mats were missing.

[gas0linealley]

LOL

[B4Ranch]

Not all trucks use air-ride suspensions.

[dfwgator]

It’s not that they don’t know English that’s the problem, it’s probably more because Mexico uses the Metric system.

[Calvin Locke]

Boston is probably the worst city for low-clearance underpasses.

The majority of CDL holders get around fine, but since Boston's a big educational center, you get all the out-of-towners moving in for the school year, and those with their rent-a-trucks make life miserable for everybody, failing to plan out the route.

I heard one story about a daughter of a computer biz giant doing just that.

Do those sat navigation companies take into account clearance restrictions when giving you directions? (snow and repaving excluded, of course)

[halfright]

yeah, I see it now.... I need to remember to put my glasses on...Still this was a moron who cant read and had no regard for anyone else in the tunnel.

[csvset]

Here in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, we have five tunnels. Two tunnels serve as a link between Norfolk and Portsmouth. It seems like every four or five months someone rams their truck into one of those two tunnels.

Another tunnel, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, connects Norfolk to Hampton. Here's an article about over height vehicles and that tunnel.

Too-tall trucks still snarling tunnels
By TOM HOLDEN, The Virginian-Pilot
© August 10, 2006
Last updated: 12:09 PM

After an early-year decline in truck turnarounds at the entrance to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel’s westbound tube, the numbers have increased in recent months. Mort Fryman/The Virginian-Pilot file photo

Higher fines and blunt letters to trucking companies last year initially helped curb the problem of too-tall trucks trying to squeeze into the westbound tube of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.

In recent months, however, the number of problem trucks has been increasing, leading state highway officials to wonder what it will take to cure one of the biggest reasons for tunnel congestion.

"We're not having great success," Dwayne K. Cook, the Virginia Department of Transportation's regional operations director, said Wednesday.

Tougher penalties for too-tall trucks at the tunnel went into effect July 1, 2005. State Police also increased enforcement efforts, and VDOT and Norfolk International Terminals installed new height-detection equipment.

For a while, officials were pleased with the result. In January, the number of truck turnarounds at the tunnel entrance was 51, down from 129 in the same month last year, according to VDOT.

The improvement has since narrowed. In May, 91 trucks were turned around at the entrance, only three fewer than in the same month the year before. In June, the most recent month for which statistics are available from VDOT, 80 trucks were detoured at the entrance, compared with 95 in the same month of 2005.

A stoppage at the tunnel entrance requires the halting of westbound traffic to allow the truck to exit Interstate 64 onto the bridge-tunnel's South Island. Then eastbound traffic must be stopped to allow the truck to drive off the island and away from the tunnel.

VDOT has calculated that every stopped truck causes at least a 10- minute delay for traffic getting through the tube.

The problem occurs almost exclusively at the older, westbound tube because its height limit, 13 feet 6 inches, is lower - a legacy of its era of construction, the 1950s, when trucks were smaller. Rigs that are too tall for the tube generally detour to the much newer - and taller - Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel.

So far this year, turnarounds at the Hampton Roads tunnel entrance work out to an average of just more than two a day.

That "does not sound that bad," Cook said, "but it's happening Monday through Friday during peak travel times. That's what makes it worse. When you go through rush hours, these are the same ones that cause traffic backups. This is a major problem."

The problem would be even worse if VDOT didn't have a relief valve at 15th View Street in Norfolk. There, at the last exit before the westbound tube, it stops most of the too-tall trucks, aided by height-detection sensors.

The number of trucks turned around at that exit topped last year's numbers in four of the first six months of 2006, according to VDOT.

The rigs travel that far in spite of prominent signs along the interstate declaring the upcoming height limit.

After years of struggling with the problem, VDOT lobbied for last year's state law that raised fines to as much as $500 for truckers who violate the height restrictions.

The law also allowed adding three demerit points to an offending trucker's commercial driver's license. Too many points can lead to the suspension of the license.

VDOT has alerted trucking companies by sending letters to those registering two or more violations.

"Yet we continue to get repeat violators from the same companies," Cook said. "I think we'll need to renew our efforts in working with the Virginia Trucking Association."

Dale Bennett, executive vice president of the association, said the effort to educate truckers through state and national trucking publications has died down.

"We have not done anything lately," he said, "but I'm happy to do anything VDOT asks me to do. All they have to do is call."

Bennett said it's possible that many truckers who were told of the problems when the new law came into effect in 2005 are no longer driving.

"Driver turnover is definitely an issue in the trucking industry," he said, "but I'm at a loss about this. If you can read the signs, then I don't understand how you can get into trouble."

• Reach Tom Holden at (757) 446-2331 or tom.holden@pilotonline.com.

Traffic cameras: Live eyes on the tunnels

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Do those sat navigation companies take into account clearance restrictions when giving you directions?

I'll say, no, they don't.

One of the mapping services has a disclaimer, advising you to check actual road conditions and routes.

[gas0linealley]

Do you drive a big rig in NYC?

[B4Ranch]

I think Popman had it right, “He didn’t care or was too afraid to stop.” Probably too afraid.

[halfright]

saw an 18 wheelers up on blocks in Queens once...right out in middle of street.....Rookie driver to NYC and hauling a reefer load of ice cream. Receiver told him to wait out side in street as his lot was full.....turn on channel 6 we’ll call ya...

He hopped in the bunk for a nap with the reefer still running and when he woke to the CB crackle telling him to back into door 6...He slid into the seat and eased the clutch in as he released the brakes...checked mirror and released clutch...truck didn’t move. We came out to see what the commotion was...16 chrome wheels missing....40k pounds of ice cream up on blocks of wood, cement, whatever they could find....less than 2 hours.

Naw, that wasn’t me..I was caught sleeping at the Mass Pike entrance at I-84 on the way to Boston. In height of last fuel crisis...some one pulled up next to me and siphoned 190 gallons of fuel while I took an overnight sleep break- :-)

[pabianice]

There's a railroad bridge over the main street in the next town. It carries a HUGE sign, in red, that says, "WARNING! BRIDGE IS 12 FEET THREE INCHES HIGH! TRUCKS USE ALTERNATE ROUTE!" At least once every three months a semi hits it and gets wedged under it. It then takes a day to get it out. Next quarter, bam! again.

[halfright]

many times..53’ long and 13’6” hi..more than once I have had to lower the airbags to get under a posted 13’6” bridge, too...Idiots add 4 inches of blacktop and forget to change the sign...but professionals can tell by looking that “THIS AINT GONNA FIT”!!!
I delivered structural Steel for many of the buildings in downtown. Rules are: get across GWB by 5am. and bring Teamster card :-)

[org.whodat]

Ok, the driver was " from Texas ". I'll bet the guy "No hable Englais " .

Great minds, etc, send him to Chicago, should be good for a few hundred trailers.

[don-o]

ping

[Popman]

No, not in NYC, but I have driven big rigs and all sorts of smaller trucks.

I worked for a soft drink company for 25 years and as a manager I had to be able and "qualified" to drive anything from a tractor trailer to doubles to a regular route truck. Many times I have hopped into a 52' set up and made a delivery

I understand when you hit something with a trailer, it is sometimes difficult to know you have hit an object do to the size of the vehicle you are driving, but to peel off your entire roof of the trailer.

No way at some point you don't go "Mierda del Oh"

[org.whodat]

That would be AFTER they’ve made their deliveries and the trailer is EMPTY, and therefore several inches TALLER.

The thirteen six standard is arrived at measuring an empty trailer. With modern air-ride trucks and trailers, the height is constant loaded or empty, if the bag's function properly.