February 29, 2008
Everything's Falling Apart, Lux and Redux: Bad Tunnel Drivers
Some truck driver decided to make like a college student on move-in day yesterday afternoon. He blithely ignored the height limits on the Big Dig and plowed his way through the I-90 connector. Noah Bierman at the Globe describes the ensuing chaos resulting from the alleged dumbassery: "The trucker had dodged a height restriction, almost, until his load met with the ceiling, causing sparks to fly."
While this does not encourage faith in our fellow tunnel drivers, the Turnpike Authority took the opportunity to declare that the incident didn't bring down the tunnel, so--believe it or not--score one for the Big Dig.
Alas, we can't embed the video, but we watched it on the Globe webpage, and we're all lucky. The driver had a crane on his truck and made a huge mess of things. That driver will definitely have some 'splainin to do to the boss. WHDH quotes Mac Daniel, who notes that the driver set off alarms and was warned that he had no business in the tunnel.
All charges alleged until proven under law. Note that we called the driver an "alleged dumbass." Standard Big Dig image.



Um, we just spend how many billions of dollars on the Big Dig?
Any f'ing reason we didn't make the tunnels large enough to fit ALL sizes of trucks in order to avoid this type of thing?
I mean, we ARE a major city after all! Did we NOT expect big trucks to want to come and go without hitting ceilings and causing problems?