Sometimes, it’s hard to estimate size when looking from afar. It can be hard to tell if a shirt will fit you without trying it on, what size a shoe at the thrift store is or how big of a couch you need to buy when moving.

This, presumably, is the reason why so many truck drivers have gotten the tops of their trucks sawed off by the Norfolk Southern-Gregson Street overpass in Durham.

Commonly known as the Can Opener Bridge, the Norfolk Southern-Gregson Street overpass was built in the 1940s with exceptionally low clearance. It is a railroad bridge bisecting South Gregson Street, just south of West Peabody Street, and has led to hundreds of collisions.

I can’t remember the exact moment I first heard of the Can Opener Bridge, but I know I was young. Though I grew up in Carrboro, the first place I ever visited in North Carolina was Durham, and it is quite difficult to avoid the Can Opener Bridge, both because of its central location and its notoriety. I’ve always had a bit of a morbid fascination with it, as someone minorly obsessed with local oddities.

Thankfully, Duke University employee Jürgen Henn has chronicled these crashes from the window of his nearby office for nearly two decades. He runs a website, 11foot8.com, that serves as a database for Can Opener impacts.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, at the time the Can Opener Bridge was built, the minimum clearance allowed for interstate overpasses was 14 feet. In the 1960s, that height was increased to 16 feet.

The Can Opener Bridge famously had a clearance of 11 feet and 8 inches, making it significantly below the legal minimum both before and after the regulations were adjusted. In 2014, the bridge was raised eight inches, creating a clearance of 12 feet and 4 inches, which is still well below the legal limit and below the standardized maximum truck height for passing under most overpasses.

According to Henn, the reason for the bridge height adjustment was not because of these crashes, but rather a desire to level the tracks between three railroad crossings in the area.

As they approach the overpass, drivers are met with a flashing overhead sign reading, “OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN,” along with two yellow signs displaying the clearance. Still, multiple times each year, trucks barrel through the intersection, ripping the tops off of their trucks like skimming the fat off of milk.

“Trucks keep hitting the bridge because the drivers are most likely distracted, inattentive or simply don’t know how tall their trucks are,” Henn wrote in an email to The Durham Voice.

There have been so many crashes that they rarely make headlines anymore. The last news story detailing a crash is from July of this year, on a website dedicated to RV travel. The article is cheekily titled, “RVer drives under low bridge. Oops! Not pretty.”

However, the most recent crash Henn recorded was on Sept. 22. The video shows a deceptively large box truck run a red light and get stuck under the bridge with the grating screech of metal on metal.

In 2024, North Carolinian indie rocker MJ Lenderman filmed a music video for his song “Wristwatch” at the Can Opener Bridge. In the video, directed by “Jackass” mastermind Lance Bangs, Lenderman rams a truck into the bridge numerous times with various cargo flying out of it, including basketballs and pool floats.

In an interview with Pitchfork, Bangs said he chose this location because of the song’s theme of “characters caught in persistence without progress,” which, in my opinion, translates perfectly to the anticlimactic nature of ramming an ever-so-slightly too-tall truck into a bridge, getting stuck and reversing. Every time Lenderman crashes the truck, he tries again.

To me, the bridge is more than just an anomalous engineering mistake. It’s the perfect example of what I love so much about this area and the joy of growing up here — we have a sense of humor.

Whether it’s a reckless driver involved in 31 collisions with numerous easily-recognizable vanity plates — including “STAYUMBL” and “JESUSDOS” — or mysterious, religious signs advertising a strange website, Durhamites are able to find humor in the odd, sometimes unfortunate things that happen around their city.

There are so many people in this area who are so dedicated to keeping others informed about silly things in the city — like Henn — which, to me, is true community journalism.

I will continue to be on the lookout for the abnormal both in Durham and the Triangle as a whole, and I hope my fellow citizens will too.