A ‘can opener’ bridge in North Carolina has brought sudden and unexpected accidents for the large carrier vehicles due to its unique ground clearance.
The 100-year-old bridge is famous for scalping trucks as it is low in clearance compared to other bridges in the region.
It is an intersection bridge between Gregson and Peabody streets in Durham and is known to have caused truck scalping incidents over the course of time.
Most bridges in North Carolina are built with 15-foot clearance but the figures pertaining to an ancient bridge in Durham clearance from the ground stands at 11 feet 8 inches, the clearance is quite rare to its vicinity.
Low clearance of the bridge is a reason that most drivers fall prey to the famous can opener bridge, even though the authorities have placed warning signs, still it gets ignored by most of the drivers who don’t pay attention to the important signboards alongside the road.
Durham’s can opener bridge has left more than 100 trucks damaged over time due to its unexpected height. The preventive measures were taken a little late when the authorities jumped in and placed a board notifying them of the bridge’s unique height.
However, many of the truck drivers wouldn’t pay the required attention to the signs, and so is with the warnings mentioned at the bridge’s entrance. And it gets pretty late when they do realize the negligence upon the unexpected collision as the roof of the trucks stays behind forced by the bridge while the vehicle tries to get on with the journey.
The occurrence of the accidents urged the state to get ahead with further measures, which included the breaking of the piggy bank and lift the old train bridge by 20 centimeters in an attempt to make the users safer than before while commuting on the road below.
“I think people are just distracted. They don’t expect it, sneaks up on them a little bit,” Jurgen Henn, of the 11feet8 website and YouTube channel, told The 9th Street Journal. “And the location is a little tricky because it’s a two-lane, one-way road between two relatively tall buildings. So the approach is really narrow. If you haven’t been paying attention to the signs, you won’t catch the bridge, and by that time you’re on it.”
The ancient and famous can opener bridge recently claimed its 167th victim. Hen is the man who made this bridge an online celebrity, he placed a surveillance camera for the truck drivers who don’t pay attention to the important signs and know their importance better upon the collision. To say, hard-learned lessons have proved to stay for the longest of the time.
The guy witnessed some accidents from his office window and later installed the camera for recordings to post them online. It is human nature that makes us enjoy and feel bad, both at once for those who go through something unfortunate. The channel he made for the unexpected collisions now has over 170,000 subscribers and the name of the channel depicts the rare clearance of the bridge, “11foot8.”
