New York Launches Crackdown on Trucks Hitting Low Bridges

By Y.M. Lowy

This week, New York State is launching a statewide push to stop truck accidents before they happen. Governor Kathy Hochul announced that New York is joining 16 other states and Washington, D.C., in a coordinated effort to step up enforcement around truck safety.

The campaign is called Check Your Height, Know It’s Right, and it focuses on one thing: making sure drivers of tall vehicles know how high their truck is and whether it can safely clear a bridge.

The effort runs this week and comes in response to the 350 bridge strikes reported across the state in 2024. Most of these accidents happen when drivers use the wrong GPS or simply don’t know the height of their truck. Rented moving trucks are also a common culprit, often driven by people not used to handling large vehicles.

State Troopers will be out in force this week, especially in known trouble spots like New York City, Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley, where commercial trucks are banned from parkways that have low clearances. 

So if you’re behind the wheel of a tall vehicle, even just renting a truck on the way home from the Catskills, double-check your route, know your height, and stick to commercial-approved GPS.