11 foot 8 inches (plus 8)

[llondel]

Someone at work sent me this link earlier.

http://11foot8.com/

It's a low bridge with a webcam to record all the trucks that hit it. They increased the height from 11'8" to 12'4" (hence the +8), and it still gets hit. There's a steel girder in front of the bridge to protect it, so that takes the brunt of impacts, but there have been 173 incidents recorded since 2008.

[Karearea]

^ I've been watching the videos on YT for a while. Extremely amusing!

editing to add link to videos YT channel, yovo68:

https://www.youtube.com/c/yovo68/videos

[Pontius Navigator]

One in the paper today, 8 feet -6 inches. They put in a sacrificial bar 6 inches lower. Naturally it got hit.

[llondel]

I hope I'm very much aware of heights now I have a high-roof van (110") so fingers crossed I don't get to feature in anything like that.

[Hydromet]

Our work vehicle was a Land Rover with a boat on top. One of the properties we regularly visited when I first started work had a cattle grid and gate access. Naturally, we always used the grid. One day when we arrived they'd put a sign up, spanning the grid. The boss, from habit, drove straight across it anyway. Luckily, it had only been spot welded to a couple of pipes at the ends, so the sign hadn't sustained much damage, but he was a bit embarrassed to tell them he'd brought their sign down, even more so when they told him they'd only put it up that morning.

[Karearea]

Folk acrorst the street installed an automatic roller-door in their garage.

There was not a lot of clearance overhead for their van but they'd make it with several inches to spare.

Then one day they drove in with a ladder strapped to the van roof...

[limeygal]

We have a bridge here called "Graffiti Bridge" which gets hit regularly. They have over the years plastered the area with warning signs, but still they hit it. The bridge is still standing, though well past it's sell-by. They deflate the tyres on the lorries to drag them out when they get wedged in there. Idiots

Grafitti Bridge 2.jpg (13.17 KiB) Viewed 733 times

[izod tester]

Looking at the second photograph, a long vehicle only 10 ft high, may have the middle of the top impact the bridge when the front and rear wheels are either side of the lowest part of the dip under the bridge. Maybe the posted height takes account of that or the photograph overly emphasises the dip. Having said that, any driver that hits it should be prosecuted for driving without care and attention.

[Malvernian]

Once had a very sweaty palms moment in our campervan, 2.58m high, in Le Mans. Got forced into wrong lane by French truck, and was committed to go under 2.75m bridge. Very gingerly crept forward, and looking up through the roof lights at the rivets of the bridge. Much horn blaring by the following Frenchies, but managed it without a scrape. I keep a note on the sun visor of height, width, length and weight of the 'van.

My sister used to work for Network Rail in their "Bridge Hit" dept, they had in the region of 1500 hits per year. Network rail found in a survey that 32% of truck drivers didn't know the height of their vehicle.
Trucks, buses usually carry notices in their cabs of heights, but guess if the driver doesn't look at the notice or the bridge signs.

[Pontius Navigator]

Malvernian, buses may take a wrong route or a driver unfamiliar with the proper route.
Trucks may have the wrong Satnav or out of date.
Grantham, Harlaxton Road is in the top 10 for strikes. It's not helped by the main east west A52 threading its way through the town centre.
When the Western part of the southern bypass is complete in the Spring it will bring a whole new level of pain until the Eastern link is complete but that will be another couple of years.

[OFSO]

There is a very low bridge on the car access road to the Auchan supermarket, Perpignan. The road itself dips to go under the bridge providing an optical illusion that the bridge is even lower. My 1m98 minibus cleared the bridge with no problems, couple of inches to spare, but it didn't look it and we winced every time we used that road.

[Malvernian]

Malvernian, buses may take a wrong route or a driver unfamiliar with the proper route.
Trucks may have the wrong Satnav or out of date.
Grantham, Harlaxton Road is in the top 10 for strikes. It's not helped by the main east west A52 threading its way through the town centre.
When the Western part of the southern bypass is complete in the Spring it will bring a whole new level of pain until the Eastern link is complete but that will be another couple of years.

Yes but surely they should be aware of the height of their vehicle and there are warning signs before and on the bridges.

[4mastacker]

Yes but surely they should be aware of the height of their vehicle and there are warning signs before and on the bridges.

Yes, there are warning signs but they aren't any great distance from the three bridges in Grantham to give the drivers a chance to find an alternative route and there's no place for over-height vehicles to turn round, unlike the old A46 at Bingham where the road passes under the Nottingham-Grantham railway line. The bridge PN referred to is an arched bridge and drivers don't appear to understand the meaning of the sign "Keep to the centre of the arch".

To compound the problem with the low bridges, Lincs County Highways decided to put bell bollards on a tight curve near the A52 bridge where lorries regularly get their tyres shredded if they get too close to the kerb whilst negotiating the curve - if the low bridge doesn't get them, the bell bollards will.

[Hydromet]

When I was a student we were practising surveying in a park with occasional car traffic. With the survey chain across a road, we lifted it over the tops of cars and waved them through. Without exception, the drivers ducked their heads as they went under the chain.

[llondel]

The one on Station Road in Ely is one of the most bashed bridges in the UK. That's only 9ft clearance and actually has a level crossing bypass adjacent to the bridge. My van wouldn't fit under that one.