Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fear of bridges?

I forgot to add a guy started a droving service a few years back for $50.00 he will drive your car accross the bay bridge for ya....he is quite busy.

Never had a fear of heights, used to be a cliff climber, but my ex was terrified of heights. Took her to Black's Beach in Cali once and I've never seen her so pale. Another time driving over the Continental Divide where the side of the road drops off to nothing...
Another time in Tulum, Mex., she turned white as a ghost.
I always wanted to hang glide, but as of yet, have never had the opportunity...

Living on Virginia's Eastern Shore, hitting both bridges is sometimes a necessity. I have seen winds so gusty that there was green water sloshing on to the bay bridge tunnel down south, which often gets closed due to high winds, in degree (trucks first, of course). Every so often a big truck F's up and goes over, recently, a guy lived, which was unusual.

What gets me about that one, and the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, is the absolute utter inevitability that moron tourists will slow down to 30 mph while driving through the tunnel, so damn aggravating!!!

The Annapolis bridge can get tricky in a tiny car over the expanded metal part. I have felt the car gust upwards a little going over that in a high wind, coincidentally at the same time that there was an icy rain and spitting snow falling. That wadded me up just a little, other wise, I just drive over it.

I've had a few bridges that made me nervous the first few times I crossed them, I think mostly because I was driving a semi and had a much better view of just how high up I was lookind over the railing, combined with the reality that a 3 or 4' tall railing was not going to be very effective at stopping an 80,000 lb, 13' 6" truck from going over the side if I screwed up. A few of these I did later in a car and realized you can't see over the side from that height and thus have no idea how high up you really are.

First ones that spring to mind were a couple on I-80 in western PA near Emlenton and Clarion. The Emlenton bridge is 270' up, but it looks real narrow coming down the mountain at about 70 mph towards it in a big truck.

The Blue Water Bridge on I-94 crossing from Sarnia, ON to Port Huron, MI is a little disconcerting too, particularly when you sit on it for an hour or two waiting in line for customs as it sways while you look over the railing at the water 200+' below.

The Chesapeake Bay bridge tunnel never bothered me, I thought it was pretty cool.

Oh, you can bet I'd play this one as much as possible.

I found a pic of the Bridge at McKinneysburg

https://bridgehunter.com/ky/pendleton/browning/

They tore it down about 10 years ago and there's a new one just downstream that is all steel and concrete. It's no dang fun. They had to modify the roads on both sides for miles to get the steel girders moved into place.

As a bridge engineer responsible for maintaining them I love em, they pay the bills. You'd be surprised at just how strong bridges built in the last 50 years are. I've seen some crazy impacts from everything from mobile homes to drilling rigs and the girders are barely damaged.

I always hate suddenly losing control when driving over bridges but i always wear my seatbelt so i wont fall out the hole it tears in the truck floor and that keeps me from falling 60 ft into the water.

None of you had to read the story in school by one of the so called great qqeerr authors about a persons fear of bridges?

Well, supposedly, according to my dumbassed dimocrap english teacher, it really was a fear of "crossing over" in life.

Sheesh. We got fed a lot of crap in school. Some of us swallowed it, djs.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge is on record as one of the scariest. Crossed it one time at 0200 hrs. on my bike during a Class 3/4 ish hurricane. Memorable .

Around 25 - 30 years ago a local man had his vehicle break down while crossing the twin bridges on US-41 over the Ohio River between IN and KY. As I recall local news reported witnesses said the man was on foot outside his stranded vehicle on the bridge trying to get it going again when he was struck by another passing vehicle which knocked him over the side rail and down into the river. The river was up pretty high with a lot of debris and flowing a good bit faster than normal at the time. Witnesses said they believed he might have survived the initial fall as it looked like he was trying to wave, swim, or something as his arms were flailing around as he floated away down stream and out of sight. News report also stated that witnesses said it looked he was wearing a 'puffer' style down insulated jacket that likely helped him stay afloat longer than he probably would have. Don't recall hearing if his body was ever found.

Youre lucky.

We had a high school bus driver and assistant football coach. Nice old man everybody loved whose name was Dick Skinner.

Any bridge that is not privately owned has to have an inspection done every 2 years based on the National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS). This inspection shows deficiencies and if they are not addressed can result in weight posting or closure. Weighted structures are a natural aging process of structures and is perfectly normal. For any modern structure to collapse there has to be some blatant issues with materials, installation or severe lack of maintenance.

You never see most of the bridges you drive over on a daily basis.

True, we maintain thousands of bridge size pipe which for us starts at 54".

The only bridges I get any sort of uneasiness crossing has been the St Paul, MN High Bridge and the Ira Bong bridge going into Superior, WI. For whatever reason I get a little tightening in the gut going over them.

The I-35W bridge gave me an uneasy feeling the first time I passed over it after it was rebuilt, I drove over it twice the day it collapsed and responded to its fall. We were initially in a triage support role so did not get into the immediate collapse site. The brother of a buddy rode the bridge down and later worked on the replacement.

Had a friend in HS who's dad painted the dang thing when it was built, hanging over the bay in a bosun's chair basically. Safety was a bit different in the late 60's than it is now!



It was a pretty special bridge when built:

"In 1970, it won an award of merit for long span bridge from the American Institute of Steel Construction.[11] The five-lane bridge featured the longest continuous box girder in the world[10] until it was surpassed by the Shibanpo Yangtze River Bridge in Chongqing, China in 2008.[12] The bridge is the third largest orthogonal box in the country – the box is the center part of the bridge, between piers 18 and 21 over the main shipping channel. "

I guess there's folks that go around through Imperial Beach and out the Coronado spit to get there from SD. HazMat trucks have to make the long drive too. I remember before it was built we took the ferry over there, I'm not sure but they might run a couple for tourist trade now.

I walked on this one before it came down, sometime in '99-'00. Pretty cool walking out on that thing, LONG way down!



"The Kinzua Bridge or the Kinzua Viaduct (/ˈkɪnzuː/,[4] /-zuːə/) was a railroad trestle that spanned Kinzua Creek in McKean County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The bridge was 301 feet (92 m) tall and 2,052 feet (625 m) long. Most of its structure collapsed during a tornado in 2003. "

"On completion, the bridge was the tallest and longest railroad bridge in the world and was advertised as the "Eighth Wonder of the World".[5][11"

Cool stuff bridges, they even inspire some cool songs





Geno

Driving across bridges never has scared me. I have motorcycled a few that made me uneasy. I about schidt myself walking on this one. My wife laughed at me.

https://royalgorgebridge.com/

If a person doesn't like crossing a bridge in a car, I imagine that feeling what it is like when a freight train hits a bridge at 70mph would be enough to do those in who even have a mild phobia. Shaking and wobbling is a mild feeling in comparison. There are several on my territory that have been known to leave newbies with their fingernails in the conductors desk.

Though my fear gets at me in a car, I was on this one too. When I lived in Coudersport it had already blown down. But they now have an outlook built with glass floor. Its awesome! I recommend anyone in the area stop on and see it.

Photographer needs to correct his dates. Center span of the old McKinneysburg bridge went down the river night of 01 March 1997 during "The Flood of '97". Was replaced several years later. The first photo in that series was actually the old "blue bridge" between downtown Falmouth and Shoemakertown, which has since been replaced as well.

The size and construction of the new bridge at McKinneysburg re-kindled local rumors that there were still plans to bring a new interstate segment through the county. Interesting that a old wooden floored, single lane bridge, in the middle of nowhere, would be replaced with a modern two lane bridge with two full length, full size shoulders that potentially support four lanes of traffic.

The video of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse was phenomenal ! Hard to believe or understand the magnitude of the oscillation without seeing the film.