11 Foot 8

11foot8.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2013

A site documenting trucks hitting a low railroad bridge in Durham, North Carolina, with video, an FAQ, and updates on the crashes.

What HN saysHN commenters cite it as a long-running example of drivers ignoring signage and following car GPS, and say it shows how often trucks hit the bridge.
22HN people shared it
14linked it in comments
8stories submitted
196story points
12 months agolast shared
2013people per year2026

Most-shared posts

  1. 1
    11 Foot 8 – The Can-opener Bridge
    18 people · 192 points · first shared 2013 · 202 comments on HN
  2. 2
    11foot8 faq
    2 people · first shared 2020
  3. 3
    11foot8
    1 people · 2 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
  4. 4

What HN people wrote when they linked it

macNchz · 2017-04-18
A truck GPS is extremely helpful if you're driving a commercial vehicle any appreciable distance in an unfamiliar place. They include many additional data points in routing: vehicle height for overpass clearance, vehicle weight for bridges, "No Trucks"/"Passenger Cars Only"/"No Commercial Vehicles" restrictions etc. You can get yourself into hot water if you're following car GPS directions with even a mid-sized U-Haul. See: http://11foot8.com
peckrob · 2016-05-09
> 4. I'm not a trucker, nor an SUV driver, but something to account for high-height vehicles could be useful for many. This exact issue causes a fair number of trucks to hit this one specific bridge [0] in Durham, NC. Blindly following a GPS meant for cars when you have a tall vehicle is a recipe for disaster. [0] http://11foot8.com/ [1] http://championtrucklines.com/latest-news/11foot8-bridge-crash-compila… [2] http://chapelboro.com/news/news-around-town/durham-can-opener-bridge-c… [3] http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/threads/11-foot…
jld · 2013-05-14
Check out 11foot8's YouTube channel for some great examples of how common this can be in some places. http://www.youtube.com/yovo68 http://11foot8.com/
NDizzle · 2013-05-14
This article made me take a trip to one of my favorite often-forgotten websites, http://11foot8.com/
JamesLeonis · 2024-09-10
I think http://11foot8.com/ proves all the signage in the world won't matter.
Animats · 2024-08-20
The next step being 11ft 8 inches.[1] [1] http://11foot8.com/
philwelch · 2024-04-05
There’s a legendary bridge in North Carolina that, fortunately, is not threatened by truck drivers. Rather, it is the threat to improperly driven trucks, and is affectionately known as the “Can Opener”: http://11foot8.com/ I’ve been watching these videos for years and despite adding increasingly prominent warnings and raising the bridge itself eight extra inches, idiots—often in Penske rental trucks—will still drive into the bridge and peel off the top of their box truck.
kotaKat · 2023-08-01
It's as if the city council decided to drive right into their own bridge[1] and now we get to watch the chaos unfolding all the same. [1] http://11foot8.com/
tzs · 2023-03-10
Sounds similar to the famous 8 ft 11 in bridge [1] (since raised to 12 ft 4 in, but still racking up victims). 177 crashes since 2008, most of them caught on camera at that site. [1] http://11foot8.com/
snypher · 2020-10-16
It was raised to 12'4" in 2019 but people still hit it. http://11foot8.com/
YellowRex · 2013-05-14
A train company did this in North Carolina instead of raising the height of their trestle: http://11foot8.com/
syshum · 2020-06-21
" it’s not practical here. There are many overheight trucks that have to be able to drive right up to the bridge and turn onto Peabody St. in order to deliver supplies to several restaurants. Making Peabody St inaccessible from Gregson St would make the restaurant owners and the delivery drivers very unhappy." [1] at the end of the it seems most of the trucks are often Rental Trucks drive by people that likely should not be driving a large truck in the first place. In the US you do not need a CDL or special endorsement to rent many of these UHaul type trucks since they do not have Air Brakes, all you need is a normal operators license. [1]http://11foot8.com/11foot8-faq/
teraflop · 2020-06-20
That's answered by the FAQ: http://11foot8.com/11foot8-faq/ > Can’t the road be lowered? > That would be prohibitively expensive because a sewer main runs just a few feet below the road bed. That sewer main also dates back about a hundred years and, again, at the time there were no real standards for minimum clearance for railroad underpasses.

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