New York State Department of Transportation’s “Check Your Height, Know It’s Right!” Campaign Has Been Adopted by 26 States Plus Washington, D.C. To Educate the Public on the Importance of Preventing Bridge Strikes
Enforcement and Public Awareness Campaign Runs from Monday, July 27 to Friday, July 31
Governor Kathy Hochul today announced a growing, coordinated public awareness and enforcement campaign to prevent bridge strikes by commercial vehicles and large trucks across New York State. In November 2023, the State Department of Transportation launched the “Check Your Height, Know It’s Right!” social media and video campaign to educate the public about the importance of preventing bridge strikes. Since then, the Department has worked with The Eastern Transportation Coalition (TETC) and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to encourage other states to adopt the campaign. To date, 26 states including New York, plus Washington, D.C. have joined this campaign, up from 16 states last year. This year’s campaign runs from Monday, July 27 to Friday, July 31 and aims to educate drivers about their responsibility in preventing bridge strikes. In addition, drivers are reminded that in February New York took a significant step toward mitigating bridge strikes by instituting an 8-point violation for striking a bridge.
“Bridge strikes are 100 percent preventable, and everyone plays a critical role in preventing these strikes from happening,” Governor Hochul said. “It takes a combination of education, enforcement, and public awareness to stop bridge strikes from occurring, so I encourage everyone using an overheight vehicle to ‘Check Your Height, Know It’s Right!’ before hitting the road and, if you are driving a truck, make sure that you’re utilizing commercial GPS.”
Truck operators should use commercial-grade GPS devices and applications for navigating along New York’s roads since consumer-grade GPS and cell phone mapping applications do not necessarily take low-clearance bridges and overpasses into account when calculating travel directions. The New York State 511NY website includes “Trucker Mode,” which identifies the location of height- and weight-restricted bridges and highlights restricted routes, such as the parkways, and all commercial vehicle operators are encouraged to use “Trucker Mode” to verify their route ahead of time. Additionally, when driving rented box trucks, such as moving trucks, drivers must be especially aware of their vehicle’s height and obey all warning signs since many drivers are not accustomed to operating a larger vehicle.
In 2025, there were 310 reported bridge strikes in New York State, usually involving commercial and large truck operators who failed to know or recognize their vehicle’s height or ignored warning signs. It is the operator’s responsibility to know the height of their vehicle, adhere to roadway restrictions and limitations, and obey low-clearance warning signs.
As part of this week’s campaign, State Troopers will focus active patrols in key areas across the state where there have been documented bridge strikes by large commercial vehicles. Variable Message Signs throughout the state will be displaying “Check Your Height, Know It’s Right” messaging throughout the campaign.
Bridge strikes are most likely to occur on roadways with low-clearance railroad bridges, and on New York State Parkways predominantly in the Lower Hudson Valley, New York City, and Long Island. The NYS Parkway system contains numerous low-clearance stone arch bridges that cannot accommodate commercial traffic. For that reason, commercial trucks are banned from driving on the parkways. While NYSDOT promptly inspects all reported bridge strikes to ensure structural integrity, such strikes cause extensive damage to the vehicle and can lead to secondary collisions due to unexpected traffic congestion and subsequent emergency repairs.
The safety of the traveling public and all those who work in the right-of-way is of paramount importance, and bridge strikes place first responders and emergency personnel at risk when responding to these preventable incidents. The “Check Your Height, Know It’s Right!” campaign is a step toward promoting safety by raising awareness of the bridge strike issue and highlights the critical role that drivers play.
To date, the following states (plus Washington, D.C) have adopted the “Check Your Height, Know It’s Right!” campaign:
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Connecticut
- Washington, D.C.
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Illinois
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Maine
- Maryland
- Minnesota
- New Jersey
- New York
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Vermont
- Virginia
- West Virginia
No comments:
Post a Comment