[Mishmash] Too-Tall Truck Loses Roof in New York City's Lincoln Tunnel

[fatkinson at mishmash.com]

Too-Tall Truck Loses Roof in New York City's Lincoln Tunnel
FOX News

I'm wondering if he was driving a fourteen foot trailer.  They are not legal east of the Mississippi.  
West of the Mississippi, trailers may be as high as fourteen feet.  
East of the Mississippi, trailers may be no higher than thirteen feet, six inches.  
Periodically, a cross country driver will pick up a fourteen foot trailer on the west coast not realizing it is a fourteen foot trailer and drive it to the east coast.  Sometimes they get lucky and travel along highways that have underpasses with fourteen feet or more of clearance.  Sometimes, they go under a bridge that is less than fourteen feet and more than thirteen feet, six inches.  
As you can imagine, the result is not pretty.  
I once arrived at the Richmond, Virginia yard and noticed a fourteen foot trailer out in our yard (the company I drove for had a special series of numbers for fourteen foot trailers) so that's how I knew.  
I knew immediately some inexperienced driver had picked it up on the west coast and driven it east.  The only thing they could probably do with it was to put it on a train and ship it west.  
You would think that one of the weigh/inspection stations he went through would have stopped him.  But it didn't happen.  
To make problems in NY state, they always mark the clearance height one foot lower than it actually is.  So when you see twelve feet, eight inches, you know that it is really thirteen feet eight inches and can drive under it.  
The argument they apparently make is that they need to allow for a foot of snow during bad weather.  
Oh, well. 

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