The Historic Concord Covered Bridge has a restricted height clearance of 7 feet. Although this limitation is well posted on approaches to the bridge, the occasional over-height driver inevitably ignores these warning signs and gets stuck in the protection beams immediately in front of the bridge.
The recent Cobb DOT renovations to the bridge have strengthened the structure and should prevent major damage to the bridge should a collision occur.
In a few weeks, Cobb DOT contractors will begin erecting new warning signs around the bridge. These “Blank-out” signs will stay dark or blank until activated by an over height vehicle driving through the height detection system. Once activated, the sign lights up with flashing lights. The sign will be located directly over the approach lane instead of being on the shoulder of the road like the current system. There will be two on the Mableton side, and two on the Smyrna side.
From Cobb DOT:
Shoulder mounted warning signs have proven to be completely ignored by the drivers hitting the bridge. A majority of these bridge hits have been people driving rental trucks that they are not used to driving and perhaps thinking that the signs do not apply to them based on their typical vehicle that they drive every day. The new signage as described above is our proposed solution to try to overcome this ignorance of the Covered Bridge and it’s limitations by installing something to get their attention.
The new signs are expected to be in place and functional by the end of June, 2018.
For more information on the history of the Concord Covered Bridge, check out this page. For info on the other historic structures in the area, click here.