It’s hard to know
According to the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, this summer’s vehicle vs. bridge tally is up to four: The Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge was hit in July and then again earlier this month, and the Honeymoon Covered Bridge in Jackson has also been struck twice. And over the last year or so, Sayre’s Covered Bridge on Tucker Hill Road in Thetford has taken multiple hits, the most recent reported in June.
In some cases the damage was largely cosmetic. In others there was significant structural damage totaling thousands of dollars. The bridges were closed — sometimes for hours, sometimes for days — to allow for inspection and repair. The resulting traffic diversions can really be an inconvenience for drivers, but it’s important to note that they also can have life-or-death consequences if the closing delays an ambulance or other emergency response.
This problem is not exclusive to the Upper Valley, or the Twin States. Earlier this year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the 1872 Concord Road Bridge in Georgia’s Cobb County gets hit about once a month despite an $800,000 renovation and the installation of large wooden beams at the entrances to warn drivers of the bridge’s 7-foot clearance. About five years ago, the last historic covered bridge in New Jersey was damaged when a Canadian trucker barreled through it in his Freightliner and broke an interior support beam, one of many similar incidents at that 139-year-old span. Nor is the problem limited to covered bridges. YouTube has dozens and dozens of dramatic videos of too-tall trucks getting peeled open like a can of sardines by too-low bridges, with the “Trucks Hitting Bridges Compilation” racking up more than 20 million views.
Why is this happening?
In Thetford’s case, road damage in town from a storm last year led more drivers to use Sayre’s Covered Bridge, resulting in more bridge strikes. (The town has now installed a motion-activated camera at the bridge to help it identify the culprits, who rarely seem to stop and fess up.) And at least one incident at the Cornish-Windsor bridge involved a box-truck driver who was unfamiliar with the area and relying on a GPS navigation system.
Increased wear and tear, and more frequent incidents of damage, are perhaps not surprising with increased use. But it’s especially infuriating when a piece of modern, whiz-bang technology such as the Global Positioning System plays a role in damaging a piece of history like the Cornish-Windsor bridge, which was built in 1866 and, at 449 feet long, is the longest wooden bridge in the United States and the longest two-span covered bridge in the world.
But maybe the problem isn’t the technology, per se, but the user’s reliance on it. And regardless of whether GPS or some other navigation technology is involved, there certainly appears to be a failure to use common sense. The Cornish-Windsor bridge, for instance, is clearly marked with its 9-foot-2-inch clearance. The truck involved in the July incident was clearly marked as well, with a placard showing its 12-foot-7-inch height.
It is well-documented that America’s performance in the STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math — lags much of the rest of the world. But it shouldn’t require a degree from MIT to understand that you can’t get a 12-foot-7 truck through a 9-foot-2 bridge opening.
Attempting to do so is simply the height of irresponsibility.