It’s been a while since we’ve checked in with my favorite local celebrity, the ornery-but-fair Durham, NC bridge we all lovingly call the 11foot8 bridge. Unlike what most people think, the name does not come from the Civil War Union General Elevah Fough-Tate, but rather from the bridge’s clearance height, which is a modest eleven feet, eight inches. The bridge’s most recent conquest was this law-scoffing box truck.
This overhang is not exactly subtle. Plenty of signage warns drivers, plus there’s a sensor before the bridge which triggers the red light, hopefully providing over-height vehicles with a clear indicator to, you know, stop. This one truck triggered the sensor, which made the light turn red, but our box truck wasn’t one to be told what to do by some stupid red light, so it zoomed through, which ended in this:
That beeping back-up-of-shame I think may be the saddest part of this video, as the driver must be taking those moments to consider the massive ass-pain his near-future life is about to become, and he must be wishing, with real, unashamed desire, for a 5-minutes-in-the-past time machine.
I think this is the bridge’s first victim since March, when it bested a military truck:
There’s no beating the bridge, people. Respect it, or be can opener’d.