Next bridge will be built with dolphins and I bet they review all others and require them for old bridges without.
You think dolphins would have helped that crash? Honest question.
Assuming they hit the dolphin the same was as they did the support - maybe. I could see it hitting one, pinwheeling the ship sideways and getting stuck, either on the 2 dolphins (adjacent supports) or into another support. That's one big boat with a ton of weight. Wedged sideways with the currents... be a bad deal.
I don't know that it prevents the bridge failure - we're talking a really unfortunate event.
Maybe a dolphin buys time to get power/steering or at least, slow enough to get bow thrusters to work.
But absent zero bridges, I think dolphins will be the solution selected for this.
