Truck Gets Clipped by Famous Too-Low Bridge

Jack Phillips
4/8/2016
Updated:
4/8/2016

This truck totally wasn’t ready for this.

The vehicle "was bookin' under the The 11foot8 Bridge and not quite READY ... for the impact of running into our canopener,” the uploader wrote.

The The 11foot8 Bridge, which has its own Wikipedia page and website, is located in Durham, North Carolina, attracting national media attention because it commonly rips the roofs off trucks as they pass beneath it. Locals have affectionately called it the “can opener.”

“The truck popped a wheelie and got stuck for a while. He later backed out and turned” onto a nearby street, the uploader added, per Alt_Driver.

It was the 105th crash since April 2008.

The 76-year-old bridge cannot be raised because nearby railroad crossings would have to be raised as well.

Most crashes involve rental trucks, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Jürgen Henn, who works nearby, set up a camera that records the crashes, many of which have gone viral on YouTube. There are a number of signs warning of the bridge’s height.

“Trucks often get stuck under the bridge in Mr. Henn’s clips. That leaves time for him to chat with drivers while they deflate their tires to lower vehicles enough to free them. Some tell him they didn’t know their trucks’ heights. Others insist they didn’t see the signs,” the Journal piece from January 2016 reads.

The paper said that since 2008, the damage done to trucks by the bridge has reached $500,000. It has caused no deaths and only one minor injury.

The city is planning to install a traffic signal at a nearby intersection. When a truck that’s too tall gets near the intersection, the light will turn red and stay red for some time.

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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