[LA to Cleveland]

I've got something worth sharing with all drivers out there. Last night, my wife & I just finished cooking a nice dinner, started a DVD, & had been sitting down for not even 5 minutes. We heard a really loud sound of something we've never heard from inside our home followed by the sound of something being thrown against the front of the house. We ran outside only to have the next door neighbor say " a semi just went down the street & the top of his truck broke the wires going to your house." The sound was a tractor trailer bouncing across the uneven pavement as he was going thru the gears while he was pulling thru the tree branches, snapping the service drop extending across the street to our home. I don't know if the driver was old time driver with bad night vision trying to make a local delivery or if it was just a MORON that was trying to bypass the nearby intersection (we live near a St Rt & a major street) The funny thing was that the same neighbor was saying to me "they can't drive those on a street like this, can they? " The last sound we heard was the wires whipping back against the louvered metal awning after they broke, kinda like a giant guiter string or rubber band maybe...the internet is obviously back, telephone tomorrow. I've only been a 1rst seat driver for about 6 weeks now & even I know better than to pull a stunt like that. If it had been the power lines, it would have been a bigger deal. I doubt the guy had any idea what he had done, maybe it was careless stupidity or a true mistake, what can you say or do? Anyway, this was nothing more than a reminder that overhead wires do get knocked down to the street with greatest of ease, BE CAREFUL !

[yoopr]

Unfortunately there are idiots like that out there. Anybody with common sense would have stopped because they would have known they couldn't make it.

He/she will be caught-They'll have wires and branches hanging off of their truck. Hope so anyway.

[Colin]

I was making a delivery down a residential street in Olympia, WA and took down some cable lines in a short van trailer. When I called my boss, he said, "Not to worry, they should have been at 14 feet."

Odd, I never heard another word about it. 8)

[Ian Williams]

We run into this in LTL all the time.

As long as the driver was on a public street and there was not a "No Trucks" sign its on the cable, phone and/or electric company.

Utility lines are supposed to be at least 14ft high, but often are not. Linemen cut corners, service drops sag over time, the street is resurfaced raising the height, yada yada yada.

If you are on private property all bets are off.

[Malaki86]

I used to work at a car dealership. We'd sometimes get new car deliveries with damaged vehicles from overheard branches on the road from the interstate to the dealership. Any time this happened, the dealership owner simply called the Department of Highways who had to go out and trim the trees. The state was also responsible for the cost of repairing the vehicles.

[kc0iv]

Been There -- Done That many times while driving for Cummins Tool. We went into a lot for small towns down side streets getting to tool sales. Heck I wiped out main power feeder about an hour before super bowl sunday one time. I'm sure I was a poplar guy that time.

As others said the wires are required to be at least 14 foot.

One additional point. At night overhead lines can real hard to see. Many times they are hidden in tree limbs.

A lot of the time the driver never knows he/she he hit the line. The one I hit on that sunday I didn't know it until my next stop 200 miles away. As a side note tool sales manager said he sold out of generators that day.

kc0iv

[Uturn2001]

I remember once about 3 years ago or so, a tanker had overturned in the medium during a nasty storm just west of Lake Charles, LA. The state cops had shut down the interstate and had set up a detour.

If I had been the 1 first truck on the detour I would have taken out some kind of line. Since I was the 2 nd I got to see the truck in front of me hit it and I go the fun of reporting it to the cop at the other end.

To be fair to the driver that nailed it, with the way the wind was blowing it was impossible to tell the height of that wire, and when he did hit it, the wire appeared to have just caught the front edge by a couple of inches.

[Rev.Vassago]

I run into this occasionally with HHG as well. As others have stated, the wires are supposed to be at 14 feet minimum. The power company is pretty good about this, but the phone and cable companies will run them wherever they feel like it.

Originally Posted by yoopr

Unfortunately there are idiots like that out there. Anybody with common sense would have stopped because they would have known they couldn't make it.

Unless the road specifically states NO TRUCKS, perhaps his beef should be with the phone and cable companies. The driver isn't an idiot if the road isn't marked as "no trucks". It is almost impossible to hear the phone and cable wires snapping or catching, as they are a lot smaller than the power lines, and as the first poster stated, it was NIGHT TIME. It's darn near impossible to see a 1/4 inch black wire hanging across the road in the dark.

Originally Posted by yoopr

He/she will be caught-They'll have wires and branches hanging off of their truck. Hope so anyway.

If the road wasn't marked as a no-truck route, then the driver committed no crime - the utility companies did.

[Uturn2001]

If the road wasn't marked as a no-truck route, then the driver committed no crime

They might be able to charge the original driver with leaving the scene of an accident if the law catch him.

[LA to Cleveland]

Well, it looks like a few of you drivers cut me down to size... part of being a rookie i guess. After all, it's a bummer to have all your communications taken away from you when it's on the few nights that you are home, right?
I got to talk with the lineman that hooked up a new phone drop & I happened to ask about the lines hanging so low & he told me " at the pole it's only 15' & the front of house is @ 10' & the local regulations state that the cable & phones lines be at least 2' away from electric lines". He also metioned that several other homes had their cable but not phone knocked out. Try not to run over too many 4 wheelers & be safe !!