To be fair here... the above picture is of a 2007 incident in the Oakland side Bay Bridge approaches in which a tanker truck with 8,600 gallons of unleaded crashed and burned on the lower level on ramp. Thusly melting the upper level.
Even a spanking new bridge ain't handling that.
Genuine old bridge collapses aside, the greatest danger by far on the road is the collapse in the functioning of the neurons in the cranium of the bozos driving around you.
Grain of salt please, I work in the transportation industry and the terms functionally obsolete and structurally deficient are used to scare people. These bridges are safe to drive across, but should be repaired soon or it will be come much more expensive to fix them. The obsolete one is especially funny as it relates to the original amount of traffic the bridge was designed to have crossing it. Guess what almost every inch of road is functionally obsolete the day it is opened to the public.
So relax and if you are really scared just drive faster so you are on the bridges for a shorter amount of time :) #bridges
@rigidjunkie: Exactly!! "Functionally obsolete" has nothing to do with safety. I can't even figure out why they lump them together - other than to build an impressive, scary sounding number and headline. #bridges
@Nick: No, its the repubs you keep electing. Its not like all the oil money should be taxed or anything. Those people worked hard to wait until their parents died so they could inherit the businesses, and they deserve their yachts and lear jets. #bridges
A few years back, Detroit freaked me out with not only freeway holes with re-bar showing which could swallow the 275/70/22.5's we were on, but also because of the rot, not rust, on the bridge girders.
Honestly, it could have been a third-world country.
@theart: Tough deal about the bridge, but the comments are a riot. One guy's blaming local farmers because they should have been inspecting the span's structural integrity while 'driving slowly across on tractors pulling overweight loads'. My god, as if the Weight of Responsibility isn't already crushing those poor souls-in the space of two days, they've not only been enlisted to transform inner Detroit into a Garden of Eden, but now they're being asked to acquire Engineering degrees and travel the countryside-slowly, on tractors, while pulling 'test loads'-to save our Nation's infrastructure.
Never has a Desperate Nation asked So Much, from So Few. #bridges
@powermatic: Not to mention the article saying specifically that the latest deficiencies were found in an underwater inspection of the concrete piers. #bridges
11/10/09
Even a spanking new bridge ain't handling that.
Genuine old bridge collapses aside, the greatest danger by far on the road is the collapse in the functioning of the neurons in the cranium of the bozos driving around you.
11/10/09
So relax and if you are really scared just drive faster so you are on the bridges for a shorter amount of time :) #bridges
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in our defense -- we're friggin' huge. and also we just ride our horses everywhere. #bridges
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/fondly remembers the Car & Driver Baja roadtrip during which they found one test car didn't float #bridges
11/10/09
Honestly, it could have been a third-world country.
Hold on. Michigan...I'm being redundant. #bridges
11/10/09
Just please put her out of the misery. #bridges
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If only there was a large pool of unemployed people and a government intent on spending its way out of a recession. #bridges
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[www.burlingtonfreepress.com] #bridges
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Never has a Desperate Nation asked So Much, from So Few. #bridges
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/ducks #bridges