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Excellence in storrowing at Westwood bridge
By adamg on Fri, 08/21/2015 - 3:27pm
Wait for it, wait for it ... BOOM! A truck whose driver was too busy setting the standard for food distribution excellence wiped out spectacularly at Westwood's infamous East Street train bridge yesterday. Video by Westwood PD.
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Comments
Honorary Mention
Honorary Mention to the SUV driver who continued following the truck too closely right up until the storrowing.
Excellence indeed
- Not even a tap on the brakes heading in
- Nice 30-degree-ish tilt up on the left wheels
- Complete sardine can
- Truck contents scattered all over road
- Drivers behind immediately deciding "well, screw this" and turning around.
10/10
Yeah, screw this
I would think people would at least stop to make sure the driver is OK. Sure he probably is, but who knows?
Hmm it turns out that he DID distribute food.
It was all over the road. I guess that doesn't count as Excellence in Food Distribution. But still spectacular.
Well
That was dramatic.
Haven't we seen a storrowing at this bridge before?
All the time
Which is probably why Westwood PD has a surveillance camera pointed right at it.
There's barely a month that
There's barely a month that doesn't have one.
It's time to start calling it "Islingtoning".
This was so excellent
I made it into a GIF
https://gifs.com/gif/vM8WrL
Breathtaking!
I watched the gif before I watched the full video. Breathtaking!
Game, Set and Match!!!
Okay, BU Bros, let's see if you can beat that!
(Dis)honorable mention indeed to all of the people who seemed to just take it in stride and turn around, without appearing to make even the slightest inquiry into whether someone (in the truck or a pedestrian or driver coming from the other side) might have been even a little shaken up. Also, maybe the police or other responders might want to speak with you (no, you knew it was being recorded, right)?
I guess we're all in a rush with kids in the car after all!
It's a great chance to teach your kids
what to do when something happens. Don't stop and help your fellow citizens. Show your kids what kind of character you have.
We can't see the other side of the bridge
They may have seen people stopping on the other side - it's clear there was traffic going both ways, and the people on the other side of the bridge would have better access to the truck and its driver.. Not like they could have safely driven under the bridge at that point, given all the debris.
Maybe ...
but at least 1 car can be seen turning around on the other side. Or at least pulling over to our left (their right) and it looks like it was in the process of turning around. But you're right, they could have been parking to then go check on the driver. Who, based upon how the truck continues to roll, may have gotten hurt. That was quite an impact.
I don't drive, but
I'd like to think I would have gotten out of the car and checked on the guy.
That said, I have played a lot of Grand Theft Auto and am a pessimist, so I might have decided "oh hell no dawg, his truck is about to blow up" and high-tailed it out of there.
I imagine those people who
I imagine those people who are turning around looked over the scene and thought:
Stopping would just make everything worse
If you stopped here instead of just getting out of Dodge, aren't you just going to be in the way of emergency responders? Call 911 and get out of there.
Or....
They all live in Westwood and know that the driver's always ok, traffic won't be going through there for hours, and they have places to be just like the last 20x they drove upon this same scene with a different truck exploded in the road.
It's too bad the video doesn
It's too bad the video doesn't have sound, so we could hear all the Massholes honking at the vehicles behind the truck for slowing down.
BU should embed this....
In all their "Welcome, Students!" emails/
And yes, I know it was Westwood and not Storrow.
They could
Except it has been quite a long time since there has been a proper student storrowing.
Most seem to have gotten the message - this is now firmly in the realm of the professional drivers here abouts.
low bridge
Is there room to erect a archway 50' in front of the bridge that would be a less destructive warning than the solid bridge?
93 North
93 North heading into the O'Neill Tunnel has flashing warning signs if a truck appears to be overheight ... which is ignored all of the time I've seen it flashing. I then play a game of 'which semi could it be'? as we continue into and through the tunnel. It's hard to tell; sometimes it could be a loose fabric on a scrap hauler container.
But in the past as discussed here the overhead chain warning system could be used, however beautiful Westwood might not want that marring their bucolic vista.
I've seen that too
What I've not seen is any wedged trucks. I really wonder if it is functioning properly?
Oh god
I saw one DODGE THE EXIT SIGNS today
thru traffic keep left, whole new meaning.
Very true
How dare you question whether the system works!
Sarcasm aside, that could be, or they're extra cautious (those who had last say of the setup), or the sensors are too sensitive. I wonder how often it is calibrated? And honestly, what truck driver will pull aside and wait for the police?
This comment confuses me...
This comment confuses me... if you don't see any wedged trucks, wouldn't that mean the overheight vehicle detectors are functioning properly and letting operators know to slow their roll, so to speak?
Either way, if you think an OVHD (this is the way 'overheight vehicle detector' is abbreviated per MassDOT) is inoperative, do what you can to notify proper channels, e.g., State Police will notify the Highway Operations Center pretty quickly and get one of the MassDOT Comms. guys on it (that group services the network of OVHDs)
Because
The sign notifies drivers of their overheight nature and tells them to pull over and await authorities. Because neither is present (pulled over nor wedged), it seems fair to question if the sensors are working correctly.
Meat head didn't make "provisions" for
the height.
That traffic light before the bridge
was green for the entire length of the video. Couldn't the town rig up something that would turn it red if an overheight truck approached it?
Something like this.
Something like this.
I do have to wonder what level of signage is necessary to stop these clueless drivers. I can't see how much signage this bridge has, but places like Storrow Dr still get "storrowed" regularly despite all the signage. What's next? Automated tire-poppers connected to an over-height sensor? Something that aims and fires a .50cal directly into their engine block?
Sure
Excuse the link/domain, but this would probably suffice: http://www.funnysigns.net/files/if-you-hit-this-sign-you-will-hit-that-b...
Warning sign is much too small
There's a 10'6" warning sign at the right edge of the road, but it is MUCH too small to be read by traffic at normal speed here. Also, it tells trucks to turn left, but I only see a right turn available here?
Word is
The word around is that there was a proposal to rig up a bell/siren when overheight vehicles were driving up, but the town residents said they "didn't want to hear it going off all the time".
Yes, much better that they be completely disrupted by needing to go around the scene instead.
Flashing lights should be
Flashing lights should be more than enough; no siren needed.
This is probably the best example I've seen of something like that.
That's the last sign in the series
Use google street view and count all the other signs along the route. The only one that is missing? The one on the bridge itself fell in the June attack.
Oh, well, June. I'm sure they
Oh, well, June. I'm sure they'll get around to replacing it sooner or later.
left
Left turn.
Clyde
You forgot to tell Clyde.
(am I showing my age and appreciation of cheesy movies?)
I came by around 6:30 via
I came by around 6:30 via School St. and saw the fire truck and ambulance coming the other way heading back toward 109. There was water and insulation all over the place near the bridge, and clumps of insulation strewn around all the way out to the rotary, more than 3/4 mi. Not a very good job of securing the load by the towing company, which I'm going to guess might be Bill & Mike's in Dedham.
Got cut off on 93 south today
by a truck from the same company.
it made jalopnik
Even the East German judge
gave that a 10.