Truck Off
We're not the only one who noticed that more and more trucks are dashing
blindly onto Soldiers Field Road/Storrow drive. That's blindly, as in failed to
notice the giant sign that warns "NO TRUCKS OR BUSES."
The
ever-vigilant Channel 5 news team caught on to the trend and jumped on the
bandwagon with a March 31 report about some dumb trucker who blamed the fact that
he'd had to stop just short of the 11-foot-clearance railroad bridge by BU on his
GPS. Hey, you know, the sign said stop, but this little gadget I picked up at
Best Buy said go. So . . .
Not only that, the TV report went on to say that authorities are
aware that this is a recurring problem. To which we say, right, so put back the
big-ass old dangling sign on the entrance ramp and let the trucks
experience what "low clearance" means at a safer distance from
traffic (and before they end up trapped on a limited-access divided highway).
The fact that some GPS systems don't factor in details like
"how high is your truck," or that some fathead who drives a truck for a living doesn't know to
program the stipulation that he's driving a 14-foot-high vehicle into his GPS doesn't
surprise us. In the latter matter, everybody knows people don't read
instruction booklets. In the former, we also all know, computers offer soulless
data without context. (Back when online mapping services were infants, we had
one instruct us to get on I-90 West, then turn left onto Brookline Ave. Then again, we knew better.)
But none of that excuses the people in charge of traffic safety
from doing something to correct the misunderstanding. Even this morning, less
than nine hours after that report aired on Channel 5, there was yet another
idiot truck stranded on Storrow. Same place that they showed on TV. Same place we mentioned on this blog last week.
Look, this is funny because truckers and traffic experts are well
known fools and it's fun to bash them. But, at the risk of sounding like Aunt
Mildred, somebody's going to get hurt. And then we'll have this big deal guilt
thing where we have to find something to blame and then close Storrow Drive completely or pass some draconian law to
prevent another tragedy.
Guys, why wait? Neither truckers nor computers are getting any
smarter soon. Promise.
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