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For the second time in a week, and the third time in the last three, a tractor trailer was damaged after trying to drive underneath the CSX train bridge on Young Street in the City of Tonawanda.
The frequency with which the same scene plays out was summed up in the words of a passing bicyclist:
“Oh, bridge claimed another one,” the man said as he rode by without stopping.
A similar accident two days ago left an empty container truck driven by an Ohio man with its top ripped off, and resulted in its rear doors being sheared off.
A couple of weeks earlier, a similar scene also took place.
In the last decade, more than 30 such accidents have occurred in the same place as trucks exceeding the bridge’s 11-foot-six-inch clearance continue to smash into the overpass.
On Friday, around 2:30 p.m., a truck driven by Preston T. Bass, 61, of Oxford, Mich., suffered a similar fate.
As in most if not all of the historical wrecks, nobody was hurt.
But what is a theme of many of the mishaps was also at play in the latest accident, being a reliance of GPS equipment that suggests the route to drivers without taking the low bridge into consideration.
City of Tonawanda Police Lt. Pat Rank said the driver claimed he was following his GPS unit, and didn’t notice the many signs placed near the bridge announcing its height.
“He told me he thought he could make it at the middle point of the road,” he said.
Police have said there is currently twice the legally-required number of signs leading up the bridge.
“I don’t know what you can do to make the signs more visible,” Rank said. “You can’t say that bridge isn’t properly marked.”
The truck with Mississippi plates had come from I-290 and was carrying 40,000 pounds of rolled paper for delivery at the Smurfit Stone plant on River Road in North Tonawanda.
Bass was ticketed for failure to obey a traffic control device and exceeding bridge clearance.
The city has applied for a grant to purchase a new, flashing sign for placement near the bridge.
In the accident prior to the latest one, police said the driver admitted to seeing the signs but simply failed to realize his rig exceeded the height limits.
Local News
Related Photos
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AGAIN: Another truck struck the Young Street rail bridge in the City of Tonawanda on Friday, around 2:30 p.m. The driver told police he was using a GPS unit before striking the bridge, and that he thought he could pass underneath. It is the second such accident in the last week, and the third in three weeks. NEALE GULLEY
October 29, 2011
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