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Storrowing of the year: Truck slams into bridge, spills crap all over, damages car

Storrowed truck

A driver with a possible reading problem ignored the "CARS ONLY" signs and drove his big rig right into a bridge on Storrow Drive near Charles Circle around 9:30 a.m., spewing fluid from the electrical transformers all over the road and putting a major hurt on a Hyundai that had the misfortune of being in the adjoining lane just as one of the transformers was knocked free by the bridge, which, as always, refused to yield.

The Boston Fire Department reports the fluid was not hazardous at least, but State Police still had to shut the inbound side of the road until crews could sop up all the slippery liquid.

The department adds nobody was injured in the storrowing, which, if there were judges for such things, would have gotten high marks for the complete wedging effect, the disgorgement of both solids and liquids and the complete disruption of many people's travel plans.

The damaged Hyundai (photo by BFD):

Damaged Hyundai in Storrow crash

Sopping up the transformer fluid (photo by BFD):

Sopping up the leaking transformer fluid
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Comments

...of an overheight Christmas.

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Just like the ones on move-in daaaaay....

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and drivers swearing ...

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Headed the other way!

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on every Storrow drive I take ...

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May your right foot be ready to brake,

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a big mistake.

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knocked free by the bridge, which, as always, refused to yield.

That's it! We need to be building Nerf bridges!

Then we can work on Nerf pedestrians...

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I'm a fan of the idea of a laser tripwire at the height of these vehicles, maybe half a mile before the first bridge, which, when interrupted by an overheight vehicle, subsequently fires a 50cal directly into their engine block.

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Know what would stop this from happening forever? No cars on the waterfront

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Though a car didn’t do this and it’s not the waterfront.

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When one person "storrows", then that person is an idiot. But when it happens all the time for decades, that's an indication that the system is poorly engineered. It needs to be fixed, and the obvious answer is to dig the underpasses deeper. The bridges can't be raised, but the roads under them can certainly be lowered, and that's what should be done.

Billions for the Big Dig, but not one cent for Storrow? It boggles the mind.

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That is a great idea to dig the road deeper right next to a river.

I'd take this one step further and pave over the esplanade to create an adjacent six-lane highway for when the original deeper one floods. The best part is that there are no bridges to tunnel under, and the little islands can be used for parking! We'll probably have to throw a bone to those whiny cyclists and pedestrians, so we can toss in a narrow sidewalk with an access point or two to Beacon Street (which should be widened anyway to make room for more double parking).

Mind unboggled.

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You are getting your wish. The Baker administration has proposed to build a temporary highway (10 years) over the Charles River so as to placate all the suburban drivers who would be inconvenienced by the I-90 project. Contrast this to all the MBTA work, like the year the green line, again, is going to terminate at North Station and buses will shuttle the herds to lechmere. Its always the cheapest option for MBTA riders, and the best for suburban drivers.
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2019/10/15/a-rough-guide-to-bostons-allston...

Charles paved paradise and put up a highway.

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Why not think even bigger? There's an enormous empty space right next to the Esplanade which at the moment is completely wasted; in fact it's filled with water. Why not pave over it, and create a massive parking lot with a 12-lane highway running down the middle?

I'm sure we could figure out something to do with the water. Bottle it and sell it, or just dump it in the harbor.

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That poses difficulties that have been addressed already, but the simplest trick that I feel could help would be to get rid of the medians so cars can just do a u-turn when they need to. It wouldn't stop storrowing, but it'd help people clear out when they happen and it'd help when trucks realize soon enough to not storrow but still have to get off the road somehow.

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Idiot resistant may be engineered, but not idiot proof.
Why can't a driver with a license requiring additional training be expected to not screw up?

Let them lose their licenses and pay damages and a fine.

Then maybe they will take their job seriously.
Why coddle those with inept behavior?

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Idiot resistant may be engineered, but not idiot proof.

That's attitude is emblematic of "the perfect is the enemy of the good". Just because a solution isn't perfect, doesn't mean it's not better than doing nothing.

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doesn't mean it's not better than doing nothing

I did not suggest doing nothing. Increasing standards by making lame-ass drivers pay for the damage they cause is not nothing.
It just isn't an expensive engineering solution to a human behavior problem.

A pair of sized entry gates of steel reinforced concrete would be effective and cheaper.
One of the pair would still allow access.

Height detectors and automatic crossing gates would help too but probably fail due to not being maintained and triggered by kids/malcontents.

I prefer to hold people accountable to their behaviors.
If a few drivers get delayed by the rare failure, tough excrement.
Driving is an outdated technology (or at least extremely inefficient) meant to enrich specific industries, including the lobbying industry.
It certainly isn't for the good of the public.

If

it doesn't mean it's not better than doing nothing

then why do nothing about the larger systemic problem?

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Idiot-proofing something is actually quite hard. They’ll always be a better idiot.

1. Put signs up - they don’t read them
2. Hang chains to drag over the roof of over height vehicles - they don’t notice them
3. Give them special GPS units to make sure they stay on proper roads - they don’t use them.

I’d say this driver is a top 5 percenter idiot-wise. Higher marks would go to someone carrying hazardous materials like the old transformers used to have. No wonder most spent nuclear materials are stored on site.

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Not to further boggle you, but we could also entertain the hypothesis that there is more than one idiot. . .

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This is a road for pleasure drivers.

It is also a road that never ever should have been built in the first place.

Another bit of history - does Back BAY mean anything to you? No? Look up the history of that while you are googling. You can't "dig the underpasses deeper" when you are already occupying estuarine fill. LOL! Not unless you are planning for pontoon trucks.

Sorry, but we've heard all this before. Drivers need to learn to READ and learn to READ MAPS.

Until we get a Cat 2 hurricane or equivalent NorEaster surge, that is. Then it is totally Game Over for the entire road.

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Low bridge clearances don't jam trucks,
truck drivers do.

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Yeah, I'd say they are.

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I’ve said it on here before, and I’ll say it again: for all the human comedy entailed in a Storrowing, this is really dangerous.

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That's the only way to fix it. Add exits to the pike.

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How about some enforcement and reading comprehension. Storrow is supposed to be passenger car only. No trucks, no busses no commercial vehicles. State police could maybe walk outside their barracks occasionally there by the science museum and stop some commercial traffic. a little enforcement would go a long way
Also there should be a larger fine and penalties for doing this.

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If the fact that "your truck won't fit on this road, you will destroy your truck" hasn't made it into these people's minds, how will the fact that a couple other truck drivers here-or there got ticketed going to do so? These are accidents borne of ignorance or carelessness and aren't going to be deterred by knowledge of anything (getting ticketed or otherwise) because these people simply aren't paying attention.

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At least they were hauling new transformers. Not hauling away old transformers full of PCBs.

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This morning the 3AM WBZ Radio news report actually used "storrowed" to refer to this.

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No one needed an explanation.

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