Swedish police have told the BBC there were two sets of safety barriers in place on the bridge, red warning lights were flashing, and other drivers were waiting.
If the barriers were on the bridge and the car was going as fast as eye-witnesses report, then it probably just went straight through them.
I think there's something to the idea that most people are familiar with draw-bridges and not the sort that they encountered. Not seeing a tilted portion of roadway, they may have simply assumed they still had time to make it across.
[ursus...when I say 'level crossing', you can see about a KM in each direction. If no train is visible, you simply weave through the barriers and carry on. Stupid in the telling, of course, but obvious in the doing.]
Driving in Florida was certainly an experience the way those bridges tilt up. When abroad you fucking stop at everything that says stop and if the locals get the hump, then so be it.
I couldn't get my head around the fact that you can turn right at red lights in the States.
I was in a smash last week where some cunt smashed into me from a side road and sent me flying through a wooden fence and down a ditch with massive trees and bramble bushes. The car was destroyed.
I feel for those poor guys. No brake lights means they didn't even see that there was no more road and plummeted straight down. From my experience last week, things went in slow-motion. I'd plenty of time to think 'I'm dead here'. Imagine what they were feeling.
Calvert wrote: I was in a smash last week where some cunt smashed into me from a side road and sent me flying through a wooden fence and down a ditch with massive trees and bramble bushes. The car was destroyed.
Sorry to hear about that, Calvert. Presumably all's okay injury-wise?
Calvert wrote: I was in a smash last week where some cunt smashed into me from a side road and sent me flying through a wooden fence and down a ditch with massive trees and bramble bushes. The car was destroyed.
And why didn't you put this in the Mundane Thread?
Haha
Cheers, chaps. I'm fine.
I had to get a couple of tetanus jabs because when I forced the door open to escape, I stood right on a fucking rusty nail from the smashed fence, part of which was had impaled the radiator grille.
I'll tell you what won't be ok, though - that pricks next insurance quote.
I'll be removing his trousers and ramming it right up him.
WOM wrote: I think there's something to the idea that most people are familiar with draw-bridges and not the sort that they encountered. Not seeing a tilted portion of roadway, they may have simply assumed they still had time to make it across.
Well there is a vertical lift bridge like that within half a mile of our house, whereas I can't remember the last time I saw a drawbridge (probably the last time I was in London, Tower Bridge is one of those isn't it?)
But either way, if you see two sets of closed barriers, flashing red lights and warning signs, and all the local cars around you have stopped, you should probably take the hint.
Middlesbrough's two main bridges are actually a lift bridge and a transporter bridge, though you'll note that I didn't choose either of them as examples of those types of bridges in my post on the first page, in an attempt to become less parochial about these things. That didn't last long.
There are a number over the Welland Canal, as well as one over the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, but the most likely one for you to visit is the Michigan Avenue Bridge in Buffalo.
There are also about a dozen in and around NYC (including one over the Harlem that our go to subway line traverses).
ursus arctos wrote: There are a number over the Welland Canal, as well as one over the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, but the most likely one for you to visit is the Michigan Avenue Bridge in Buffalo.
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