Photos: Tractor-Trailer Ripped Open After Hitting Belt Parkway Overpass

Legend has it that when Robert Moses designed the Belt Parkway, he made the overpasses low in order to ensure buses couldn’t travel on it, so that the lower-class masses, dependent on mass transit, couldn’t access the fancy-shmancy beaches of Long Island. And while it seems to have been successful in keeping buses off,  it appears truck drivers never got the memo.

Of course, as residents we all know commercial vehicles are not permitted on the Belt Parkway. But when ill-informed truck drivers try to skirt the rules, it turns into a spectacular failure. Last time we reported on one, in June 2012, it turned into a multi-agency removal effort, and caused an SUV to be crushed in the impact. Almost exactly two years before that, in June 2010, another tractor-trailer tried sneaking on in the middle of the night, and ended up turning the area around the B/Q overpass at East 14th Street into a wasteland of debris.

There must be something about June, because it happened again last night. At around 9:20 p.m., an 18-wheeler illegally traveling eastbound on the Belt Parkway again slammed into the B/Q overpass, snarling traffic for hours.

Making matters worse, as it was being removed by the Queens-based Runway Towing Corporation, the truck was dragged along and then – wham! – right into the Knapp Street, Exit 9 sign, destroying that as well.

Sheepshead Bay’s subway and pedestrian overpasses outside the Belt Parkway are also no strangers to the occasional daring truck driver trying to squeeze through – and failing. For just a few examples, see here, here, here, here and here.

For this one, readers Butch Moran and Ed Ioffe happened to be on-hand to catch some photos of the damaged truck.

Check them out below.