Low Bridge Scare!

I have happily driven hundreds of thousands of miles without ever once worrying about hitting the top of my car on the underside of a bridge. But, those carefree days are over. We've heard many horror stories about truckers and RVers hitting the tops of their rigs on low bridges.

We are 13' 5" tall, so we go to great lengths to make sure we never go anywhere near a low bridge. We carefully plot our course the night before we move Betty. We use the Rand McNally website and our Rand McNally RV GPS -- both of which are supposed to route us away from any too low bridges.

While driving from Monroe to St. Clair we drove under two Detroit bridges marked 13' 6"!!! That's only ONE INCH of clearance. It was frightening!!!  The Rand McNally RV GPS thinks 1" of clearance is good. Really?!

I snapped the photo above after we successfully passed under the second 13'6" bridge (and my heart rate returned to normal). We noticed that the trucks were traveling in the middle lane, instead of the right lane. So we moved over too. Bridges are higher in the middle, so the truckers must feel safer near the middle of the bridges. Whenever we're not sure of low bridges or even low hanging big tree branches, we look for other trucks. If they are on the same road as us, it's probably a safe road (although Jessica Tuell can tell you stories about not-so-smart truckers).

What if the road had recently been resurfaced?

We already travel with 2 GPSs, a road atlas and multiple state maps. Terry is out right now buying us a Truck Atlas.

- Amanda