Yes, You Can Drive Over The Side Of A Bridge Rail If Snow Is Banked On It

This is a pretty terrifying thought for those of us who commute over a bridge each day here in the Twin Ports.  There has been at least two instances in the last decade where a vehicle careened off a bridge and over the guard rail.

In each case, it was because the driver was driving too fast for the conditions and the vehicle lost control and actually drove up the snow banked on the guardrail and over the side.

The first I heard of it was last year on the Blatnik bridge, where a pickup truck spun out and rode up the snowbank and over the side.  He was extremely lucky that it happened on the incline of the bridge and he landed on the ground and survived.

I saw another article from archives of a crash that happened in 2011 in Cloquet. A woman lost control of her Toyota Camry and ran up the snowbank and over the side of the bridge, landing in the middle of the road below the overpass of I-35.

The road crews work to clear out these snow banks on the bridge, but sometimes it takes them a bit to get to them.   So the really only way you can protect yourself is to SLOW DOWN and BUCKLE UP.