Semi-truck trailer gets stuck under Pierre railroad bridge

[freemexy]

A truck from Denver pulling a van filled with bottled water on its way to Bismarck drove under the railroad bridge where regularly truck loads get suddenly stopped by the low bridge and the rising street/highway.outdoor battery cabinet

“My GPS said turn left, I turn left,” the driver told the Capital Journal. “The lights were not on.”

It happens nearly once a month in Pierre at this low bridge in between two quick jogs on a stretch of U.S. Highway 14 and 83 that isn’t for trucks, generally.It happened this time shortly before 6 a.m., Thursday, June 20 and it closed Pierre Street for that block for nearly five hours.

The Volvo truck tractor has the name of Five Stars Freight on its cab. Based on the U.S. Department of Transportation number painted on the truck cab near the company name, the company has one truck and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Capt. Bryan Walz of the Pierre Police Department said the truck driver, Alexeis Davidson Gonzalez of Florida “disregarded traffic signs designating the appropriate truck route and followed his GPS to travel north in Pierre Street.”

Gonzalez was issued a citation for a truck route violation and released from the scene, according to Walz.

Gonzalez and his partner riding shotgun speak Spanish and English is not his preferred language, Gonzalez made clear. They were hauling a load of 16-oz bottles of water from Aurora, a suburb of Denver, to Bismarck, he said.

So he had driven north into Fort Pierre, crossed the Missouri River on the Waldron Bridge, then traveled down Sioux Avenue until U.S. Highways 14/83 turn off at Pierre Street, while Business 14/83 keeps going east on Sioux to the truck bypass on the east edge of town.

Such mishaps happen regularly here where U.S. Highway 14/83 turns off Sioux Avenue at the federal building and goes up a slope under the Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern Railroad bridge, which is lower than most semi-truck loads and many RVs: 11 feet, 3 inches.