It has happened at least 64 times. Tractor trailers keep smashing into the CSX railroad bridge over Young Street in the City of Tonawanda.
The trailers are too tall for the low bridge, and the end result is inevitably a spectacular crash.
Officials have tried everything to try to warn truck drivers.
They've put up signs. They've banned trucks from Young Street. They've had ticketing blitzes. They've considered digging under the bridge, but realized that could lead to flooding and problems for the little street that intersects there with Young.
Now, they say they have finally come up with a solution: laser beams.
On Thursday, Rep. Brian Higgins, Assembly Member Bill Conrad and Tonawanda Mayor John White announced a $1.2 million federally-funded project to install infrared sensors that would be used to trigger an electronic sign to alert drivers to the low bridge ahead and redirect them to a safer route.
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"It's a warning system," Higgins said.
He defended the $1.2 million price tag.
"It's a small investment for the safety of the city," Higgins said.
The constant crashes have been a headache for the City of Tonawanda, but somewhat amazingly, no one has gotten hurt in any of the crashes, and the bridge doesn't budge.
But the crashes snarl traffic, shutting down the narrow road for hours as crews work to dislodge trucks and clean up debris. The trailers are often destroyed in the crashes, with the tops sheared off. Â
Up and down Young Street, multiple signs alert drivers about the bridge up ahead.
Several bright yellow signs read: "11'-6"," as in 11 feet, 6 inches. That's the height of the bridge, built more than a century ago. Nowadays, tractor trailers are generally 13 feet, 6 inches.
But those apparently haven't been enough to catch the attention of some truck drivers.
The flashing lights of an electronic sign should do the trick, White said.
"We're hoping it'll put an end to it," he said.
Police Capt. Fred Foels was especially happy to hear about new high-tech solution to the low bridge problem. He's the reason officials know exactly how often trucks slam into the Young Street bridge.
In 2000, when he was a lieutenant in the records department, he noticed the bizarre phenomenon.
So he started keeping track in a binder of each truck-bridge crash. All 64 times.
He said, in most cases, the drivers blame their GPS systems.
The drivers say they were relying on a GPS system on their phones – such as the ones installed on iPhones and other cell phones – instead of commercial GPS systems designed for truck drivers, which alert them to special situations such as roads with weight restrictions, or low structures, including bridges.
"We come across that – where they blame it on their GPS. They're lost. They've got to get to a destination. They're looking all around," Foels said.
But he thinks that's a poor excuse.
"That's part of being a truck driver – to be cognizant of all the signs and everything," he said.
Even the near misses cause problems, Foels said.
"We had a near miss on May 31," he said. The driver managed to come to a screeching halt just before the bridge. But then police had to shut down traffic so the driver could safely back out.
At the news conference Thursday announcing the new project, Higgins was critical of CSX for not taking action to prevent the crashes.
A CSX spokesperson previously told The Buffalo News in an emailed statement that the railroad company inspects the bridge after each crash, and "it remains 100% structurally sound and safe for train movements."
CSX said that raising the bridge would be "a significant engineering project with impacts to numerous other bridges," and that signage on the bridge would "restrict our ability to conduct visual inspections."Â Â