Okay Britons, here's your shot at ripping us Americans who've had quite
a few laughs at the
expense of your GPS-loving
neighbors. Reportedly, the driver of a charter bus carrying a high school girls' softball team decided to casually follow the soothing turn-by-turn directions that were being emitted from the nearby GPS unit rather than actually noticing the enormous clearance sign on the overpass ahead. As you can likely guess, the 11-foot, 8-inch-high vehicle plowed right into the 9-foot bridge -- which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 -- though somehow everyone on board escaped without any major injuries. Oddly enough, the driver apparently isn't alone in chipping away at the landmark, as a local even mentioned that "large trucks hit the bridge
every two weeks or so," but couldn't resist noting that "this [instance was] by far the worst."
[Thanks, Raleigh]
posted Apr 17th 2008 10:56PM
[insert boom headshot comment here]
BOOM! HEADSHOT!
Do you see how you screwed up there Payne?
Well now no one can post a boom headshot comment 'their' since you fricking took the spot... Jerk.
I hope he got a ticket for being parked there too long.
You seriously need to get Rick Roll'd.
"Soothing turn-by-turn directions?" Are you kidding me? Whenever I have my GPS unit out, I eventually throw it in the back seat because I took a shortcut and it flips out telling me that if I don't get back on her route, she'll take a shotgun and shoot me.
It's a tough life, being a GPS person.
this whole top-posting by replying to the first post thing really should be curtailed, Seth
Highest ranked comments to the top, perhaps? ..or would that just cause temporal chaos?
Probably not a good idea "ethana2", I'd just get vertigo from being so high up the page all the time. ;)
... why don't we just smash into that bridge when we come to it.
@seth: I use the female British voice because it is much easier to listen to. That and it makes me feel like James Bond when I'm driving.
Ha, that just brightened up my day.
If he spent that much time glancing at the GPS for directions I'm surprised he made it anywhere at all... Still doesn't beat driving into a river though.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/27/faith-in-gps-sends-mercedes-downstream/
Do they need to outlaw GPS' in vehicles too?
How is this any worse or better than driving into a river? I'd say both incidents are equally stupid.
Either way, stupid behavior can't be excused.
Driving is NOT a mindless task; it takes active attention by the driver in order to be done safely, especially with a large vehicle such as a motorcoach.
Just goes to show that some people are brainless: there's scores of people out there that drive while talking on the phone, or doing other things they shouldn't.
Actually I think this is more stupid than the river. You can see the darn bridge looming ahead, whereas under certain circumstances you might not notice the river until it's too late.
'course, that's what the signs are for.
Not only did he not notice the signs ( there are several ) but also missed an audible alarm system to warn drivers of larger vehicles. This bridge is quite low and has been hit quite a few times before ....
I know it's a historic bridge, and they can't make it any taller.. but couldn't they dig to sink the road into the ground?
it's historic, you can't dig into the ground in case you disrupt it, and there's no reason to do extra work to deal with stupid muppets who can't follow their basic highway code, or indeed those who can't read.
What you need are auto-sensing guns that shoot out the tyres of approaching vehicles that fail to stop, the driver would bloody take notice then. ( I know it's not likely but you know it'd be cool)
Yeah, but this seems to happen on a regular basis. At 2 trucks a week hitting the bridge, there soon won't be much of a bridge left for historic purposes.
Lower the road, or move the road, or put up a stop sign and another next to it saying "you can't be more then this tall to ride under this bridge...
run flat tires?
Hehe... I saw this on the local news. Apparently, this softball team was on their way home from being beaten up 10 - 0 by some of my friends' school.
*GPS loving neighbours ?
that's exactly what i thought when i read that too lol.
Anyone happen to notice the bus company name? www.journeylinesinc.com -- Me thinks business is suddenly not going to do so well...and I hope I'm partially responsible. *evil grin*
from their website:
"Our drivers can safely wisk you away from the Seattle International Airport and take you to one of the local Seattle area restaurants or hotels"
hehe
that'll buff right out..
seriously though, how the hell did he get that much of the bus through before deciding to hit the brakes..
Once you're in a little ways I think the best you can hope for is to come out on the other side....
thats what she said!
I was wondering if people were decapitated until the article said that everyone escaped.
You can't put an 11'8" square [bus] into a 9' round hole.
That's what she told me, too. But I actually did manage it with a running start and pure brute force. Felt pretty good, if you ask me.
a five ounce bird cannot carry a one pound coconut!
It could be carried by an African swallow!
Fail, CraigJ. Fail. The correct reply was "He could grip it by the husk!"
Fail UKNigel. Fail. The correct reply was: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here.
gg
GPS: upping the number of Darwin Awards since...
Speed 3: Going Nowhere
lol
Good God, notice how low that thing hit, I'm glad the girls are Ok,
what if we start doing IQ tests before letting people use GPS..er 's?
Oh man, we need tests for alot more then just GPS usage... Just a few examples...
MORE STRICT DRIVING TESTS (srsly, nuf w/ the "you pass if you get 25 outta 50 things right" crap)
IQ tests before letting people on the internets
IQ tests before letting people out in to the world
etcetera...
IQ test before you are allowed to have kids.
You should need some sort of license to be allowed to have kids, which you get after a long string of tests involving aptitude regarding observation and child-rearing.
This happens all the time at a couple of railroad overpasses near my job: http://flickr.com/photos/ourjenna/541910326/
The driver apparently was a fan of Convertibles.
Typical. Many of you are going to become so addicted to GPS that you won't be paying attention to obvious road hazards.
Like when I check my computer for the weather, when I could just as easily step outside and see for myself.
damn weather widgets!
But it's right in the clock applet! A quick glance is a ton quicker than getting up, walking to the door, opening it...
Wait, what OS do you use? Windows is worthless, hey mac guys? Does OSX display the local weather by default in the top toolbar?
Oh, I'm sorry, I don't think any stable OS does that....
Well, this goes stable in a week, so whatever. Very convenient.
Google gadgets works on a stable operating system.
The temperature is 48 degrees Fahrenheit. It's raining and the overnight low is 47. The high today was 67. All of that and I never had to get out of my chair.
F A I L .
Need I say more?
"Here comes a failbus" maybe?
"I'm leaving Engadget now and never coming back" Would be a great thing to add to your comment.
I live in a town called long grove,(http://www.longgroveonline.com/) which is so well known for its historic downtown that our covered bridge is a symbol. Not only is the bridge one laned, but also so short that everything bigger than your average consumer automobile (someone in one of those ridiculous International truck/Car things destroyed it) hits the top and tears a hunk out of the bridge covering.
Catch is, the repairs cost like half of what the fine is for disobeying the signs.... Its stupid really, but the downtown makes money off of accidents.
How is it a catch that the downtown makes money off of that? Ever heard of speeding tickets? Local and state police make almost pure profit on those.
Yeah, it does happen a lot. I saw a furniture truck that had gotten pwned by that bridge once...
Trucks don't need to go through the arboretum anyway.
All Your Bus, Are Belong To Us!
You made a rhyme, but that joke is past its prime.
Is the driver British?
Are *you* British?
Score = GPS - 22, Mentally Deficient Drivers - 0
waits for the bus company to sue the GPS manufacturer for not putting a warning label on it...
RTFM, It's NOT in the states.
*RTFA. Deluxe Fail.
Super Deluxe Ultra FAIL. You should RTFA. Last time I checked the state of Washington is in the US...
@Deluxe
RTFA, It is
The best part is the driver got a $150 to top it all off.
it's good that they never do anything about that very dangerous situ.
LOL
Now read about 18 posts down at: http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/16/navigons-2100-max-and-2120-max-now-shipping/#comments by Heineken77
Nice!!!!!!
Can I please have highest ranked now??
um. you said "Yet another brand of a GPS that we can buy to get us lost."
point being?
Maybe a GPS can get you lost, but it certainly can't get you under a bridge with a bus that big. Only idiocy can.
You guys are right, my comment was completely unrelated.
I was drunk when I posted this LOL
It appears that isn't an overpass for traffic after looking closely at the photo, but a pedestrian bridge. Time to tear it down and replace it with a taller one made of metal.
historical place added in 1982... i dont think they are going to tear down something like that. nice try though
I have studied the picture, I don't understand. Why wasn't every man and woman on that bus decapitated?
Because they were sitting and not standing and my guess is there was a brief OH FUCK moment before impact.
I think that if anyone was sitting on the upper deck, they would all have died. They were probably all sitting on the lower deck.
The upper deck of a bus? In Washington? Our buses don't have an upper deck.
Even if there wasn't an "oh crap!" warning just before impact, the jolt should have made sure people weren't standing by the time the roof on their part of the bus was shaved off.
Now if that was a light saber rather than a bridge, and it had been slightly lower...
They should hang a few 9' foot high break-away signs spanning the road at 50 and 100 feet out. That way if someone ain't payin' attention (which sounds like it's a pretty safe bet at this particular location) the destruction of the sign at 100 feet should wake'em up, and the sign at 50 feet should convince them that it isn't a joke, and yes it does mean them (despite what GPS might say) without serious damage to the bus/truck or the bridge itself. You could even wire the sign pretty cheaply so that when it's destroyed some stobe lights and a klaxon mounted on the bridge activate for the benefit of the truly inured...
I bet he was using that cheap GPS.
GPS: Cold...
GPS: Warm...
GPS: HOT!
*crash*
GPS: Cold...
I APPROVE OF THIS STORY.
I AM A DOCTOR I TYPE IN CAPS.
GPS=1
Bus=0
GPS won in my book
A perfect example of how low tech is sometimes more reliable than high tech.
Good god, use common sense.
Sometimes? In terms of reliability, the relative simplicity of a low-tech "system" makes it almost always more reliable than a high-tech system. That's the whole idea behind a manual fail-safe: a low-tech backup plan which is almost guaranteed not to fail, in case the less reliable high-tech but more powerful and functional plan fails.
The high-tech vs low-tech scenario has always been like that, a trade-off between reliability and simplicity vs sophistication, functionality, and power.
Didn't this happen on The Office?
LOLZ
Seriously folks... lets not blame technology for a human mistake. If the driver had a paper map and a compas his ass would still be stuck in that bridge. If he had either A) knew where he was was going or B) read the damn signs, he wouldn't be in that situation.
Yes, these kind of things also happend before everyone had GPS...
People have been stupid before...
Not nearly as messy as that one time when a bunch of people on stilts running a marathon ran into it.
Yes, it is human error. Relying on technology to be infallible is a human mistake. I wouldn't blame the technological device. I blame the human who blindly follows it's instruction. Again, common sense.
How about GPS manufacturers start including height data in their maps?
WOW...
I don't belive anything can be this dumb, so I'll go with on of these options:
1) the driver was p1ssed at a boss above him who told him "just use the fricking GPS!" and decided to get payback.
2) the driver was half-asleep/intoxicated.
3) the driver was male and checking out the "view" in his rear-view
4) the driver was pissed about all the squealing/gossiping/bitching going on in the back and decoded to get even
5) any combination of the above
I mean, how the h3ll does a driver in a bus, where the driver's seat is elevated, not see a frickin brick span at just a little above his eye level?!?!?
I would correct my spelling of "decoded" to "decided" here, but "decoded" works in a way as well, so I'll leave it.
Jeez, what an ahole - lucky nobody was killed. I am AMAZED at the idiots who will trust the satnav over reality! But actually equally amazed that road info is not being updated on satnavs to accommodate the requirements of large and/or high vehicles. There should be options on all these devices to punch in your vehicle size.
Here's a balloon head who drove his Audi down a lane by my house following the cars Satnav that I wouldn't take my Cherokee down, just past this it looks like muddy river
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?2f7506b8a6.jpg
This is so stupid! If this happens every few weeks, then why don't they put better protection measures in place? The solution is so simple: just supend a large pole, parallel to the ground, from chains at a height of 9' (or maybe an inch lower just to be safe). Do this about 100' before the tunnel. When the bus or truck slams into that suspended pole, the driver will damn well know he/she is an idiot and will stop. The pole will be sent flying in the air, but at least you won't rip the top off your truck, and the township won't have to pry a bus outta the tunnel.
If it keeps happening, why did no one think of this?
That is in boston isn't it? I think i recognize that bridge. I used to take that road out of the city every morning. Once traffic was stuck there for 30 mins because a bus almost went under; it had creeched to a halt right before it. This guy just kept going i guess.