Bridges and Overpasses

[Montana_2428]

Greetings,

We will be taking our first big trip in May, 05 with a 2955RL. Doing a U.S. tour...southern route from Calif, up the east coast and back across the top near Canada.

The 2955 is 12' 9" high as most of the models seem to be this height.
Question is; The Interstate Hwy's seem to clearly mark the clearance heights. How about the small Hwy's that dot the U.S?

Is this a major concern that you need to keep your eyes glued to upcoming overpasses?

Anyone have a "contact" story to tell?

Thanks

[CountryGuy]

Hope we NEVER have a contact story such as this, one suggestion, get a truckers map, they list MOST (I have heard not all) low bridges across the USA, even the back roads.

Be sure your brakes work well, in case you see a number that is lower that 12'9". GULP!

Have fun, sounds like a great trip.

[BigBlue]

The Federal Highway System has a lower limit on bridges and overpasses of 13' 8" I believe. You shouldn't have any problem traveling on the Federal System. The State & Other systems don't have that requirement. CountryGuy's suggestion of a truckers map will give you most of the info on bridges. But since construction is always ongoing you need to keep on eye on the signs and travel accordingly.

Good Luck

You can also get software that can help ex. http://www.ultimateroute.com/ is software for truckers.

[faeb and genb]

Just keep a watch. In the city where we live is a underpass 12 8. & they have a sign at te intersection before you get to it ststing that you have to turn right or left. Have never been any farther west than Dallas Tx. plus in Ont. Canada & havn't had a problem.
Gene

[Random Line]

Watch Rail Road overpasses!!1 Especially if you like to travel on back roads.

There is on on US Highway #83 at Pierre , SD. It is about 11 ft.

[sreigle]

Thehays, I use the Motor Carrier's Atlas. In the front it lists low clearance locations by highway number by state. You can buy this atlas at just about any truck stop or major book store, like Barnes and Noble or Borders. I've gone so far as to create a 'draw' file with these locations for my street atlas/gps software so I can see which ones are on our planned routes. Only once or twice have I needed to change a route a bit to handle this.

Yes, while there are standards for interstates we did run across one that was below the standard. It was well marked repeatedly starting miles in advance. The 'detour' was to take the exit, cross the cross-road, then re-enter the interstate. I cannot for the life of me remember where that was at, though (sorry).

We take a lot of US and state highways when towing so this is important to us. If we traveled interstates most of the time I wouldn't worry about it, just watch signs.

[rames14]

Steve -
Is the Draw feature available in Streets and Trips or is that only Street Atlas USA? I have older versions of both. That would be a nice improvement to the software to flag underpasses of certain heights. Maybe someone should send that idea to Microsoft and Delorme.

[Montana_2428]

Great responses! Thanks to all that have shared information on this
subject. I will look into the Motor Carrier's Atlas as this sounds like a great starting point.

We will be covering at lot to ground next year and to try and remember each overpass on the way will be a difficult task to keep in your present mind! I will be equipt with Navigation Radio and it has the capability to exclude overpasses. The problem is it excludes ALL overpasses on your route and would cause more trouble than it will fix.

Thanks again

Don and Michele

[Glenn and Lorraine]

On some of the back roads low bridges may not be your only problem. Watch for low hanging tree limbs. Years ago I drove truck making deliveries to farms. The truck was 12' 3" and numerous times I had to go around a low hanging tree limb. And most people don't think about them but some low hanging wires can do serious damage to vents, air conditioners and antennas.

[sreigle]

Ron, I entered all the locations in Street Atlas and saved it as a draw file. It has extension .an1. I just now exported it to a text file that includes lattitude and longitude with descriptions. Extension is .txt. If S&T will import either of those and you want to try it, email me with your address and I'll send them to you. The .an1 file is 56k and the .txt file is 23k.

One it shows is on I-35 in San Antonio. When we went through there I was sweating this one, watching for signs, but didn't see any. The interstate splits and some lanes go down under the bridges while the other lanes go up and over. We went up and over so maybe the low bridge was on the other lanes. In any case I didn't see the low one. My motor carriers atlas from which I built this draw file is a 1996 version. There may be some changes since then but probably not many.

-edited- oops, it was Austin, not San Antonio.

[mobilrvn]

Think that more of us suffer from low hanging limbs and other such obstacles than overpasses which are usually marked, but a hazard none the less. We had a rude awakening with our new Montana. It is 5" higher than our old 5W. Didn't think about this particularily when we drove into our friends' place where we had just stayed four months earlier and the limbs got us. Had to replace the refridgerator vent cover, the bathroom vent cover and two holding tank vent tops! A bad lesson, but now watch those places where we were OK in the past. Have been in places where the height has been mis-marked, so it is a good idea to know how high the rig is while you are sitting in the driver's seat. When in doubt, get out and look.