Iowa – Oct 5th, 2006. A truck company representative who declined to give his or the driver’s names said, the driver “didn’t see the low-bridge signs.” (Photo courtesy: Matt Ryerson/The Daily Iowan)

Davenport, Iowa – Nov 18th, 2008. This truck had it’s top literally ‘peeled off’ after making it completely through a railroad overpass before realizing that the truck was too tall. (Photo courtesy: Larry Fisher/Quad-City Times)

Greensboro, Carolina – Oct 1st, 2007. The driver of a tractor trailer used her best judgment to drive under this railway bridge but misjudged by 18 inches. (Photo courtesy: Amy Dominello / News & Record)

Kansas – Feb 15th, 2006. On Interstate 70 just west of Hays, a semi-tractor trailer, hauling a track hoe excavator, hit a bridge causing the boom to crash right through the bridge. (Photo courtesy: Steven Hausler/AP Photo)

The amazing part about these accidents is that it’s really not uncommon. You only have to misjudge a bridge height by an inch and you’ll peel the top like a sardine tin. These days though, truck drivers don’t have much excuse because industry leading Fleet and Truck GPS systems now include truck attributes for every road.

Truck Attributes?

There are all sorts of road restrictions throughout the US (and they vary in every state), specifying what types of vehicles are allowed in certain streets, bridges and tunnels and so on. The obvious ones are the ones that clearly (as seen above) just don’t fit. The not so obvious ones may be whether the size of your trailer length can handle a turn from this street to that street without knocking down people’s fences. Or whether the load you are moving is legally allowed on this road at this time of day and/or season.

It’s a good thing that there is now software to handle and process this information for you. To utilise this data a truck driver simply needs to enter the weight, height, width and some other attributes about their load into the system and the software will route to your destination on the safest and most fuel efficient route.