One of the most hilarious auto-related Internet sensations is watching a big truck attempting to fit under a low bridge. It always ends poorly for the truck, usually with a large chunk munched off the top by the bridge. While it’s fun to watch, trucks crashing into low rail bridges is a serious problem, as not only do the trucks get damaged, but traffic has to halt on the road and on the rails as the accident is cleared up and the bridge is inspected. Ideally, these crashes just wouldn’t happen at all, but too many drivers keep messing up. For the past few years, the state of Delaware might have found the best solution yet by placing giant plastic balls before a bridge. Here’s how so-called “Clanker Balls” have saved both trucks and bridges from hits.
America’s roads are full of bridges that offer varying levels of clearance underneath. If you’re driving down the Interstate Highway System, you can usually expect 16 feet of clearance between the pavement and a bridge. This number reduces to about 14 feet in some urban areas. These clearances generally work because the typical tractor-trailer sits at 13 feet, six inches high.
However, the bridges found on local roads may vary. Many of the old rail bridges peppering America’s secondary roads offer far less than 14 feet of clearance because they were built before modern standards. The most infamous bridge is the Norfolk Southern–Gregson Street Overpass in Durham, North Carolina, which is also known as the “11-foot-8+8 Bridge” or the “Can Opener Bridge.” This bridge, which isn’t even the lowest that you’d find in America, attained its infamy because an office worker near the bridge pointed some cameras at the bridge for all to watch. Take a look!
When Old Infrastructure Meets Modern Traffic
These many low bridges across America cause headaches for trucks on the road because their drivers have to route around them, hopefully not causing any other problems in the process. If the drivers ignore warnings or don’t realize how tall their trucks are, they may end up clogging both road traffic and rail traffic after slamming into a bridge. These bridges sometimes need to be repaired after a hit from a truck. One crash can cause a ripple effect on a particularly busy rail line as trains have to stop.
In a perfect world, these accidents wouldn’t happen. The approaches for these bridges have yellow signs that clearly call out their low height. A trucker should also always know how tall their vehicle is. However, signs are only effective if drivers look at them. Likewise, the signs aren’t any help if the driver doesn’t realize how tall their vehicle is, as might be the case for someone driving a rental truck or someone towing a fifth-wheel camper.
Sadly, the solution isn’t as simple as you’d think. These bridges often cannot be raised easily, and roadbeds sometimes cannot be lowered easily. Raising a rail bridge would require a reconfiguration of the rail grade approaching and departing the bridge. The bridge would then be rebuilt, causing delays or full stops on the rail line for potentially months. Of course, this would cost the bridge’s owner, usually the railroad, millions of dollars.
Lowering the roadbed might be difficult due to any infrastructure that may be under the road. Of course, this would also take time and cost a town a ton of cash. Even when the infamous Can Opener Bridge was raised, it was increased only eight inches to 12 feet, four inches, so it still messes up trucks.
Convincing Big Trucks To Stop
The alternative is to develop a solution to stop trucks from slamming into the bridge in the first place. At the Can Opener Bridge, for example, a sensor placed a half-block from the bridge detects when a truck is too tall, and then triggers an LED board to flash in an attempt to warn the driver. The traffic light in the intersection before the bridge also automatically turns to red. In theory, a driver approaching the bridge has 50 seconds to react before hitting the bridge, and there are warnings all over during the approach.
Yet, drivers still ignore all of the warnings, run the red light, and let the Can Opener Bridge slice their trucks open. Since drivers still can’t get the message, the North Carolina Railroad Company has a heavy steel crash beam that munches up the trucks so the bridge doesn’t get damaged.
The state of Delaware has taken a different approach. There is an infamous train trestle in Newark, Delaware, along Casho Mill Road.
This bridge, which has been around since the late 19th century, originally offered 11 feet, one inch of clearance. In the modern era, the bridge offers only eight feet, seven inches of clearance. This bridge makes the Can Opener Bridge seem roomy in comparison. The Casho Mill Road bridge is so short that it can easily trim off the tops of camper vans and lifted SUVs, forget about any sort of commercial vehicle.
As such, this bridge, which is just one of many short bridges in Delaware, has been beaten up by tall trucks throughout its long life. Mark Luszcz, the Delaware Department of Transportation’s Deputy Director for Operations & Support, published a presentation where he even found a news report from the 1970s about the bridge eating a truck.
Between 2005 and 2022, the Delaware Department of Transportation says, 78 vehicles crashed into the bridge. Eight of those crashes happened in 2021 alone, with another six crashes occurring in 2022.
The state has been trying to curb the crashes, with most methods being unsuccessful. In 2003, the state installed a set of lights that flash and are accompanied by a sign that says “Vehicle Exceeds Tunnel Height When Flashing”. Drivers ignored both. In 2017, the sign next to the lights was updated to say “TRUCKS – Too High When Flashing – Use Turnout”. Another sign was added to the bridge height marker that said: “Your Truck WILL NOT FIT”. Again, drivers ignored the lights and signs, just like they do with the bridge in North Carolina.
Delaware’s Big Orange Balls
In 2018, CSX Transportation had become tired of trucks running into its bridge. So, it petitioned the Delaware Department of Transportation to close the under-grade crossing and then to fill the hole in so that no vehicle may ever crash into the rail bridge again. This lit a fire under Newark and Delaware state officials to try to fix the issue.
In 2019, the Delaware General Assembly proposed a solution. What if Delaware started using an over-height vehicle warning system? Such systems were already in place at the NYC Port Authority and parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. These systems were simple, too, utilizing a set of metal cans dangling from an overhead beam. If an over-height truck approached a low bridge, it would slam into the metal cans long before hitting the bridge, and its drivers would be alerted, alarmed, and come to a stop.
In 2021, the State of Delaware, DelDOT, and the City of Newark penned an agreement to install so-called “clankers” at the Casho Mill Road bridge.
Delaware’s interpretation was a bit different than what engineers found at the NYC Port Authority and elsewhere. Engineers had found that the metal cans of those over height vehicle vehicle warning systems weren’t very loud. They also didn’t look particularly appealing. The solution? They grabbed a bunch of Taylor Made Tuff End vinyl boat fenders.
Apparently, the sound created from hitting a bunch of boat fenders sounds more like a loud boom than a clank, but the nickname “clankers” stuck, anyway. The existing signage and lights were retained as well.
Whitman, Requardt & Associates, LLP, the engineers behind the project, added an additional sign that’s not only so huge that you basically can’t miss it, but also says in bold letters that if you don’t stop, your truck will go “kaboom”.
Add it all up, and there’s a lot of drama when a truck hits the clankers. The boat fenders make a loud boom and bounce all over the place while connected to their chains. Usually, the driver of the truck is snapped out of whatever daze or distraction they’re in and slams on the brakes. Then they see the sign warning of impending doom and decide not to press forward.
DelDOT admits that the signage and hanging boat fenders are not Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices-compliant. However, the state, the city, and residents do not care because the clankers have been super effective. In 2023, there were zero reported crashes at the bridge; the first time such has been recorded since 2005.
The state, city, and locals have also had some great fun with the clankers. People have decorated their homes with clanker replicas during the holidays, fire departments have hung clankers from their trucks during parades, and there’s even a satirical Facebook page that publishes funny posts around the clankers. Weirdly, these boat fenders hanging from a metal bar have become a bit of an in-joke in Delaware.
As NBC10 Philadelphia reports, other clankers have been installed in Milford, Newport, near Delaware Park, and on Chapel Street. DelDOT says that while the clankers have been amazingly effective, they haven’t been perfect. In more recent times, DelDOT has discovered that some trucks hit the clankers, come to a stop, but then continue forward, hitting the bridge. The state believes that the majority of these few remaining incidents may be college students driving rental moving trucks and not understanding what the clankers mean.
Still, the clankers have been so good at their jobs that officials in California, Ohio, and other states have been reaching out to DelDOT to see if they can rig up their own version of the system.
So, if you happen to drive through one of these states and see what looks like a bunch of plastic balls hanging down from a traffic light, now you know why. Those are just simple boat fenders, and they’re there to stop truckers from blowing up their load onto a train bridge. If you’re driving a truck of some kind and you hear a loud boom just before going under a bridge, it’ll probably be wise to turn around. If you don’t, you might just turn your rig into a convertible.
Topshot graphic image: WRA, LLP
The Gregson St Can Opener in Durham also at one time had lengths of heavy chain suspended above the street before the bridge that would drag across the roof of overheight trucks and make a godawful racket. It wasn’t enough.
The reason that is now called the “11-foot-8-plus-8” bridge is because a few years ago the state of NC finally gave in and rerouted some underground infrastructure, allowing them to lower the road surface under the famous 11-foot-8 bridge by 8 inches. Since then, truck collisions have gone from a weekly occurrence to only a handful per year.
Sure that’s probably better for everyone, but as someone who used to work in downtown Durham and witnessed several can-openings, I feel like a great source of entertainment was lost.
I’ve heard whispered proposals to sneak in there every night and lay a thin layer of asphalt, eventually building the surface back up to an 11-foot-8 clearance and restoring the Can Opener to its former glory.
like those people who DIY potholes, but…different
They actually raised the bridge: https://11foot8.com/raising-11foot8/
I thought I had read that they restructured the bridge supports to be shallower, but apparently they did actually just change the grade of the tracks.
And within a few weeks someone still canopenered their truck, so it did not entirely solve the problem. 🙂
Wow! I would never have imagined Mercedes would use an image of Westbrook’s own Brown Street Bridge. Ruiner of many a poor rental/fleet truck drivers day. It’s mostly residential area so allot of moving/delivery trucks. Semi’s are rare victims. Usually hopelessly lost by that point and then, finding themselves faced with the Brown Street Bridge where backing up is a real pain in the receiver-hitch, just throw caution to the wind and grasp for the 5 minutes of fame Mr. Warhol promised everyone.
The best part? The rail line this bridge carries is not in use and hasn’t been for years.
Railroad companies are hoarders. They just might use that line one day, and they know if they get rid of it, they’ll never get it back. There are even cases where they’re legally required to “use ’em or lose ’em”, and so they run a single engine over their dormant tracks once a year to check the box.
It’s kinda funny, but also rather sad. Much like all the poor schmucks running into these bridges.
Who captioned the top shot?
Watch out for the balls, or you’ll blow your load
In the UK a bridge is marked as low and with height at anything below 16’6″ and all tall vehicles should be marked up with height in eyeline of the driver.
However because I’m a moron I know full well that tiredness etc can lead to confusion.
Whilst temporarily having swapped my usual 9’7″ van for one at 10’6″ I remembered halfway under a marked up 10′ bridge.
Thankfully the way they’re measured is round down to the nearest 3″ and then take off another 3″ for good measure. Between the van likely being also slightly overrated to help prevent disaster plus it being an arched bridge I did make it through unscathed.
Boston needs to try this for Storrow Dr. Maybe this would work where the existing hanging chains and signs aren’t enough to rouse the drivers from their drugged up states. When I drove a box truck for work, I was always aware of the height even though it was low enough to never be an issue.
Storrow Drive in Boston is so infamous for ripping off the tops of rental trucks, “Storrow” is now a verb!
As Cerberus said, both Storrow and Memorial drives in Boston/Cambridge use hanging rubber panels to try and alert and/or bonk people- see https://maps.app.goo.gl/gioWFXM4nxJE83Yw9
Despite these precautions, it’s a tradition on dorm move-in (or out) day that a rental truck gets stuck somewhere on Memorial or Storrow. Either they find an entrance without the panels or they ignore the warning. Or, the signs have been torn down/removed/displaced (as I’ve encountered and very nearly ended badly)
The ghosts or Mr. and Mrs. Storrow wish there had never been a road laid through the chunk of riverside property they left to Boston in the hopes it would stay preserved as green space for tue people of the city in perpetuity, as the original gift stated.
I suspect they’re getting their revenge by making those clearance signs invisible to people from time to time.
It’s a better theory than just assuming out of towners ignore them in their determination to drop their sprogs off at BU in late August.
The A86 tunnel in Paris has a height restriction of 6’7” high and 6 is miles long. 6’7” includes roof racks and aerials so is likely to catch a few out. I drove through in an MPV and ducked the whole way! https://youtu.be/wR5crSvtfjY
Wow, my truck would have to be a full foot shorter to even think about trying to get through that. Although I have seen older parking garages with that kind of height restriction
Just curious. Did anyone else read this to the dulcet tones of Bon Scott?
But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all!
So its a great solution, but its so close to the bridge that by the time trucks slam the brakes and stop, they cannot easily turn around… should have been placed right after that last intersection in the photos. They got the mechanism right and its brilliantly done, but the flow is seems poorly accounted for in this instance.
Actually, making it harder to extricate themselves from their own mistake is maybe better. If it’s too easy, then it won’t stick in their head that they just barely avoided a major fuckup completely and totally due to their own lack of awareness. Making it take a little more time and effort gives them time to think about, and regret, what they just did.
Ideally doing it again shouldn’t be an issue, because they shouldn’t be allowed to drive anything bigger than golf cart after missing such obvious signs.
I’m wondering if they thought that would be too confusing, once you turn onto that road, the only places to go are into residential neighborhoods and apartment complexes, or business parking lots, places where someone who isn’t comfortable driving a big truck really, really shouldn’t be going, but there is some room to swing around and do a U-turn on the street itself. You’d have to put the clackers about half a mile from the bridge in one direction and a quarter mile the other way to catch trucks before they even turned onto that section of Casho Mill.
But, then, that could create confusion that trucks weren’t allowed to be on the road at all, when, really, anyone with a legit reason to go to any of the homes and businesses along the road is fine, as long as they aren’t planning to drive under the bridge.
Man, I’d be pretty pissed when those things take out the headlights on my F250 brodozer.
Not as pissed as you’ll be when those big balls bust through the windshield to slap you in the face…
…Or maybe you’re into that kind of thing. If so no judgement from me. Carry on and Godspeed.
We touched on this in Discord last week. I had an opinion:
Fines should be assessed by approximate number of people held up and the time of their delay. Can’t pay? You perform labor repairing roads in the worst weather conditions.
Yeah I immediately wondered why the insurance for whoever owns the trucks didn’t skyrocket, the commercial drivers lose their licenses for some period…etc other hefty make-it-worse-for-the-brudge-hitting-persons consequence. If the proportion were largely skewed toward newbies with a rental truck…then that wouldn’t help but if it’s usually zoned out truckers, like…it seems like “more signs” was never really gonna be the answer other than the signs being there for a “told ya so” moment.
Their insurance likely went up if they hit a bridge unless they had a 1st accident free policy.
Sure but I’m suggesting it needs to go up prohibitively. Like causing a “we must never allow a driver to do that again” up.
Yea probably not that much of an increase, the damages are probably “low” since it’s likely nobody is injured from these.
Personally I would rather the insurance rates went up for people that injure/kill others from their own neglect.
Ugh. This just makes me think of how ineffective the “hawk signals” are at the new crosswalk near my kids’ school and one they’re putting on a major road to connect two sections of greenway.
Despite the brightly flashing read lights and crosswalk, way too many drivers blow through there like they have no idea what’s happening. It’s amazing how little attention people pay to what’s essentially a stop light if it’s not in a vehicle intersection like they’re used to.
Fortunately I don’t have to use the one by the school to get there, but once they install the new one for the greenway I expect I’ll just keep detouring down the street to the crosswalk at the intersection.
They need to add some of these (but filled with concrete) that swing down and smack the shit out of cars like a wrecking ball if they run the light.
There’s one of those at a park near me, it’s a crosswalk but there’s buttons on either side that trigger a yellow flashing light on a big pedestrian crossing sign. But since it’s otherwise kind of in the middle of a road (no traffic signal), and yellow doesn’t mean stop- right?, it’s completely ignored by probably 90% of drivers so you just have to frogger it during a gap in traffic. Sometimes people get confused, like they slow down a little and are peering around for a blind driveway or something, but then speed back up when they realize it’s “only” a pedestrian.
If anything I think those can be worse than nothing, since it gives pedestrians or kids a false sense of security that traffic will be stopped for them.
I used to live in a city that had a crosswalk like that, but with a regular traffic light on it. Similar problem though, the light is green 95% of the time, and there’s few other obvious landmarks there, so it’s easy to not realize that it’s there. Furthermore, that section of that road has a fairly large boulevard, so it’s harder to watch what oncoming traffic is doing and maybe get the hint (though on the plus side, said boulevard gives pedestrians a good place to stop halfway across what would otherwise be six lanes of dense traffic).
There are several of these where I live. My observation is that most people do indeed see the flashing lights, they just blast on through because they’re assholes who don’t want to be bothered to stop for pedestrians.
There are similar crosswalks by a local college to me. The thing I’ve noticed isn’t people blowing through it but the light randomly flashing when no one is crossing or even present at the crosswalk. I’ve come to a stop so many times just for there to be no one on either side of the road
The other problem with the stupid hawk signals is that they train drivers to ignore dark traffic signals.
these booming clankers seem like they might be very effective.
yet, “Since drivers still can’t get the message, the North Carolina Railroad Company has a heavy steel crash beam that munches up the trucks so the bridge doesn’t get damaged” seems like the idiot-resistant poka-yoke solution.
“Stop now, or kaboom” that’s awesome!
This will solve a lot of problems, but not all of them. We have a railroad bridge near me that is above a dip in the road, the first part of a truck can get under the bridge but then when the cab starts climbing on the other side, the middle of the trailer high-centers into the underside of the bridge.
That’s my new favorite sign.
I was thinking about how the clankers should be set several inches lower than bridge underside height, in anticipation of long trucks this way. It would depend on expected truck length and the approach roadway angles, and maybe with a further allowance for truck bounce over rocks and junk or due to sudden braking.
The First State, living up to its motto.
Big orange balls. Low hanging fruit. Whatever it takes.
What they need is a statue of King Kong standing over those balls that lets out a terrifying roar whenever they get hit. Will it help stop crashes? No. Will it make me laugh every single time? Yep.
Those are mooring buoys, not fenders.
Are the moor or less the same thing?
Always good when we can get some pier review on these articles.
I harbor ill feelings towards pun threads.
Oh buoy, here we go.
I’m getting a sinking feeling about this.
These puns really float my boat.
That’s not a stern enough warning to stop.
You mean knot a stern enough warning.
Take a bow
That’s a hull of a good joke
Y’all are a bunch of bilge rats.
Similar but you don’t use buoys as fenders. I have seen fenders used as buoys. They kinda suck at it, though.
Well at least they aren’t Gibsons.
No one likes a broken headstock!
Don’t make me Gretsch. You deserve an Ovation.
golfclap
Taylor Made markets them as fenders, so I just went with how they’re advertised.
Could they be any moor orange?
That reminds me, have you ever heard the one about the Pope and Raquel Welch in a lifeboat?
I want no further part of this
So you are saying that those arent buoys?
Play nice, buoys and gulls.
Since the former 11’8” bridge in Durham is on the main Amtrak line between Charlotte and Raleigh, thousands of people actually cross it daily. I had never looked it up before but realized I crossed it last month when I was in NC. It’s just west of the Durham station.
Truck nutz would be a better name than clankers. Or truck teabags.
My local bridge needs this… It’s like fantasy football guessing how many truck will hit it this year. Usually over a dozen.
May I present the Bankhead Tunnel in Mobile, Alabama. Undefeated since 1941.
This is near me.
When it comes to the Bankhead Tunnel it’s almost comical after seeing that crap happen for the 60 years of my life in Sweat Home Alabama.
(misspelled on purpose.)
One entrance to this tunnel has a less than ideal interface between the entry road vs the actual tunnel roadway.
When I was a teen, we discovered that if you enter the tunnel at about 55 mph, (actual speed limit is 35mph.) you can catch a lot of air.
Eventually we learned how to measure the distance achieved in the air.
A foot on the brakes would let you leave a short tire skid mark as you landed…the cops frowned upon that crap though.
Bring back the crotch vent!
I’m old enough to remember the cops stationed inside the tunnel whose job it was to yell at drivers who had their headlights on, honked their horn or – God forbid – were speeding. Of course, the driver’s speed was judged by the cop’s perfectly calibrated eyeballs…
I remember this as well. There used to be like a little toll booth thing for them at the Government Street entrance.
On another note it makes me nuts to drive the Wallace Tunnel is where folks seem to slow down to 35-40 mph halfway through the damn thing. I learned you can easily exit either side at 55-60 mph easy. But then they started putting cops just outside the tunnel on the Mobile side to discourage that sort of thing.
And we are just getting into the season when the tunnels carry about 150% more traffic than they were designed to handle.
More cowbell!
“The state believes that the majority of these few remaining incidents may be college students driving rental moving trucks and not understanding what the clankers mean.”
This is the sad state of students in America these days. Remember, most of these people actually graduated from some form of high school.
“Too tall??? WTF does that mean??? LOL!”
The state is being diplomatic in it’s verbiage- it’s saying they’re foreign students.
That’s most likely correct. I was just thinking about the stoners at some of the colleges in the midwest.
America produces plenty of homegrown morons. No need to jump to xenophobic conclusions.
I went to grad school in a town with a railroad crossing like the one in the article. It was nicknamed “TOEFL Bridge”. There were at least half a dozen incidents when I was there, all of them foreign students.
But thanks for assuming I know nothing about it, maybe you should be the one refraining jumping to conclusions ya jabronie.
I took it to mean:
“Too tall??? WTF does that mean??? LOL!”
“Send it.”
Foreign students can read English.
Better than most americans, in my experience.
Foreign students in big name schools are heads and shoulders above the best of America.
I know from experience teaching at less than big name schools foreign students can f#ckup far worse than the worst American students.
Lol. LMAO even. Someone didn’t go to those big name schools I guess.
The state seems to think it’s more that college students aren’t used to driving big trucks and have no idea why clearance is important.
This – it’s becoming an issue everywhere. Rented a Siverado in BC Canada 2 summers ago. Went to park it in Vancouver… there was less than 2″ clearance in the hotel parking garage.
I had a 01 or 04 Yukon XL 2500 for a few years as a tow vehicle and it fit my garage with 1/4″ height to spare. In the winter I’d have to deflate the tires, pull in/out, then re-inflate them in the garage/alley. Annoying, but this was the last vehicle made to my knowledge that can tow 9K LB and fit into a 1940’s “standard” sized garage. (length wise I had about 1″ to spare)
There’s a college town, not too far from you actually, that has a railroad crossing like the one in the article. It’s nicknamed “TOEFL Bridge,” it’s very well marked but still eats a U-Haul every few months. I lived about a block away from it for a few years, and the half a dozen incidents I saw involved 100% foreign students. A similar campus in a similar town not too far away also has a TOEFL Bridge for the same reason. It’s a thing, and if you know, you know.
It’s not that American college students can’t also do dumb shit, but there is a very specific demographic of international students who come from backgrounds where they are driven instead of driving themselves, and when they rent trucks to move between apartments carnage ensues.
This is specifically concerning the University of Delaware, an Ivy League school. Not sure if that makes the situation better or worse
I’m a UD grad. It’s not an Ivy.
Yeah, you’re right, not sure why I thought it was
I guess they loosely group it under the informal collection of so-called “public Ivies”, though it is sort of quasi-public
I live in VA now, and I knew that UVA and William & Mary are frequently referred to as “public Ivies.” UD seems to have a better reputation now than when I was there (I’m GenX). I didn’t know it, but the Wiki says that some sources now place it in the Public Ivy category. (Insert “The More You Know” .gif here)
I’d say the campus probably looks a good deal fancier than when you were there, there’s been a lot of recent construction
At any rate, it’s definitely more expensive and prestigious than the university I went to up in Pennsylvania, and in a much better neighborhood
Drexel?
No, same city though. My grandfather went to Drexel
Temple!
There you go
Chohan Freight has entered the chat…
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/chohan-freight-forwarders-ltd-cancelled-from-operating-in-bc-1.7117326