Worst bridge you’ve crossed?

Worst bridge that I remember crossing was in 1976 or 77.
I believe it was on #59 in MT, just can't remember exactly where.

Stopped in a small town to pick up some road snacks and on the north side of town was an old steel girder bridge over a river with a stoplight on the south end.
I was gnawing on a really good locally made pepperoni stick I picked up at the store where I stopped and was considering going back to get some more, was doing a little under 30 mph when the red light on the bridge came on very suddenly and I had to hit the brakes hard to get stopped.
A few seconds later I see a cement truck come around the corner at the top of the short steep hill on the other side and come barreling across the bridge and right down the centre.
There was room for two cars to pass, a small car and a truck would have been really tight, but for two trucks there was no way.
I thought that was pretty interesting until I rounded the corner at the top of the hill on the north side and saw all the white crosses on the one side of the highway, must have been 15 to 20 of them, a lot of people died at or near that particular location.

Also drove over a couple one lane bridges with traffic lights in remote areas.
Stop the truck, push the button, when the light turns green on your side, supposed to be safe to go.
Always waited a few more seconds to make sure cause you just never know where or when that one pinheaded clown will show up and wreck your day.
(bush baby stereotypes, yippee, yahoo, oh oh, oops........)

 

Ive been on some bridges not completed or built fully. Three had beams the width of the steers and inside tires of the tractor, the trailer would just have to take care of itself on two or three. They did not yet have decking on.

I can think of a couple more that were used once or twice but are gone now. There was a awful lot of bridge building in my time. Another thought was Baltimore City has some routes that are actually bridges of the arch design dating to about 1890 and you were careful to be empty going out on these. One route has a 6 foot water main under two of the lanes not too far down. It finally failed after about 109 years or so and was repaired. The main thinking is the pavement is 4 inches on top of trolley tracks buried in 6 inch cobble stone so the foundation is good for being loaded.

One bridge in Pa was a flatcar taken from a railroad. wheels off and slap it down over a small river. Not a problem. However the weight capacity of it was 40 ton and thats what you were on it.

The smallest bridge that I had to deal with is or was in Boring Maryland and it crossed a railroad line NE of town which itself is just the Post office, a fire dept and several homes. The bridge was rated at around 9 to 12 ton max and had a smaller fire dept sign showing that tandem pumpers at 34K could bridge it. The problem is that was what my tandem was on the tractor and another 30 feet back the trailer tandem as well. So one set on and over and the trailer on and over no problem. I think it was replaced finally. Crossed that 5 days a week for a long time.

A major bridge on 340 at Harpers Ferry WVa was weight restricted to trucking for over a decade and was still used by 40 ton or more 18 wheelers 24 hours a day. The last time I crossed it it moved in new ways that it is not doing well, Ive crossed that since childhood but that would be the last time I used it full up. They replaced it eventually.

 

Man, I apologize. I dropped my burrito.

 

I had to reread your post. No damage to your truck. Good deal. Now comes the part that you probably don’t want to hear: If you had went into the wall without swapping paint, that’s on you. If you swap paint and he drives off, it’s all on him.

“But Six, I have video...”

Irrelevant. Your trailer is 8’6 wide. So is his. Your mirrors are 11ft wide. For you to be able to pass each other without smacking mirrors, how wide do the travel lanes have to be? In other words, if he passed you without getting his mirror into your trailer, guess what?

This is called ‘threading the needle’. It’s a skill we all have to learn.

 

the old us-34 bridge coming out of Burlington Iowa Crossing into Illinois before they built that new one back in the mid-90s because the other wanted washed away in the floods..
you literally would stop and pull your mirrors in on the left side and just drive straight ahead because there was no way somebody wasn't going to clunk into each other's mirrors..
there were signs up there that would say that to truckers pull in mirrors

 

The bridge linking Illinois to Missouri on HWY 54 in Louisiana MO isn’t anything too wide either.

 

Can we see the footage?

 

Google Maps: Report Inappropriate Image
This is the worst in my area. Has a trucks must not meet sign on teh WI side. Due to a tight left\right S turn at that end.

 

Heard a retired civil engineer on the radio talking about I-10 in Lake Charles, LA. The dude doesn't cross the old bridge in his 4-wheeler! Says it's just a matter of "when" not "if" for that bridge to crumble...

 

Nope another ole Mississippi River Crossing..