What Bay Area Bridge Will Feature an Upended Big Rig Truck Today?

By Joe Eskenazi Thu., Oct. 15 2009 at 9:30 AM

Categories: Media

What truck mayhem will hit a Bay Area bridge today?

The tried and true journalistic maxim is that it takes three instances to have a bona fide "trend." So, no, the Bay Area isn't experiencing a "trend" of big rig trucks flipping over on local bridges. But, you have to admit, the knee-jerk phrase of "You don't see that every day" lost some gravity when tractor trailer trucks went topsy turvy on two Bay Area bridges on two consecutive days.

By now you may have heard of the Safeway truck that dumped enough soda pop and pizza on the top level of the Bay Bridge yesterday to provide last meals for dozens of San Quentin death row inmates. The driver of that truck was apparently exceeding the revamped Bay Bridge's new, piddling 40 mph speed limit by 15 mph. More signs imparting the message "What part of 40 mph don't you understand?" are in the works.

Less publicized than the Bay Bridge tumble was a Tuesday incident in which heavy storm winds blew over a big rig on the Richmond Bridge.

So, naturally, we're wondering which bridge will play host to a turtled truck today?

If the truck incident were to occur on either the San Mateo or Dumbarton Bridge, there would be a hidden silver lining beyond the obvious safety concerns and commute headaches: Finally there would be a distinguishing feature between these two freeways on water. The next time someone asked "which one? The San Mateo or the Dumbarton?" you could answer, "The one the truck crashed on."

Much the same rationale could be made for the Carquinez Bridge. Rather than the unwieldy description of the twin spans as "Vallejo to Crockett" or "Crockett to Vallejo" sub in "The truck one" or "the other one."

Speaking of Vallejo, if a truck were to upend on the Mare Island Causeway Bridge, the broke city sure could use some state or federal funds to help clean up that mess.