AI Routing to Prevent Truck-Bridge Strikes in 2025

Pennsylvania logged 600+ bridge strikes between 2013 and 2023. New York saw 350 in 2024 alone. Those aren’t “oops” numbers — that’s a pattern, and it’s expensive.

A single truck-bridge strike can shut down a corridor for hours, reroute freight across a city, and force local agencies to burn budgets meant for maintenance and safety. The kicker? Many of these crashes trace back to a simple, solvable mismatch: consumer-grade navigation being used for commercial vehicles.

This week’s headline is the bipartisan Bridges Not Bumpers Act of 2025, proposed to reduce these crashes through better data sharing, a federal clearinghouse, and research grants. I like the direction — but I’m going to be blunt: legislation won’t stop bridge strikes on its own. The real win comes when carriers and shippers pair the policy shift with AI-powered routing, compliance automation, and predictive risk tools.

Why truck-bridge strikes keep happening (and why GPS is a culprit)

Truck-bridge strikes happen because routing decisions are still being made with incomplete or incorrect clearance data. That sounds basic, but it’s the whole problem.

Most fleets have a mix of:

• Drivers using phone navigation “just to confirm” a route
• Dispatch instructions that don’t reflect real-time detours, construction, or municipal restrictions
• Trailer swaps that change height without the route plan being revalidated
• Inconsistent bridge clearance signage (and inconsistent driver interpretation)

The FreightWaves report underscores what many safety managers already know: traditional GPS often doesn’t reliably account for vehicle height, weight, or hazmat restrictions, especially on local roads and last-mile approaches. That’s where the “perfect storm” happens — a driver gets pushed off a highway by traffic, misses a last-second sign, follows a bad turn, and ends up committed under a low bridge with no safe escape.

Here’s the hard truth: bridge strikes are a data quality problem disguised as a driver problem.

The operational cost isn’t just repairs

Repairs are the visible cost. The hidden costs usually hurt more:

• Late deliveries and missed appointment windows
• Detention and layover charges
• Cargo claims from sudden stops and impacts
• Insurance and litigation risk
• Lost capacity when a truck is out of service
• Network disruption when rail bridges are involved (freight railroads maintain thousands of bridges that can be impacted)

That’s why this issue fits squarely into the AI in Transportation & Logistics conversation. Preventing low-clearance collisions isn’t only safety. It’s network reliability.

What the Bridges Not Bumpers Act of 2025 changes

The bill’s value is that it treats bridge strikes as a systemic infrastructure-and-information problem — and builds federal mechanisms to standardize learning.

Based on the reported provisions, the act directs the Transportation Secretary to:

1. Establish a Bridge Clearance Strike Working Group

   • Improve public-private information sharing for clearance and truck route data
   • Improve truck-specific information and route signs in GPS/navigation tools
   • Recommend ways for truck rental companies to label vehicles with height/weight info

2. Create a National Clearinghouse for Bridge and Tunnel Clearance Strikes

   • Collect incident data
   • Share best practices to prevent collisions

3. Create a grant program for research and countermeasures

   • Use clearinghouse data to identify high-risk locations
   • Assess effectiveness of current and future countermeasures

This matters because it moves the industry toward something we’ve needed for a long time: a shared, trusted “source of truth” for clearance risk and recurring strike locations.

Where AI fits: from “avoid low bridges” to predictive safety

AI-driven safety solutions are most effective when they’re fed consistent, audited data. That’s why the bill and AI actually complement each other.

Think of the legislation as improving the inputs (data collection, standards, sharing). AI improves the decision-making (routing, alerts, prevention) at scale.

AI-powered truck routing that actually respects vehicle constraints

The baseline use case is straightforward: constraint-based routing that includes height, weight, axle limits, hazmat rules, and local truck restrictions.

But AI improves routing in three practical ways that rules-based systems struggle with:

• Detour intelligence: When a driver gets pushed off-route, AI can choose a safe alternative that still respects clearance constraints.
• Context awareness: AI can incorporate seasonal patterns (holiday congestion, winter road closures) and local “gotchas” that don’t show up in static maps.
• Personalized risk scoring: AI can flag routes that are technically legal but historically risky (tight turns, confusing signage, repeated near-misses).

A good standard to hold vendors to is this: If a driver misses a turn, does the system keep them safe, or does it panic and send them under the nearest bridge?

Predictive analytics: finding “strike clusters” before the next incident

The proposed national clearinghouse sets up a powerful AI application: predictive risk mapping.

With enough standardized incident data (location, time of day, vehicle type, weather, detour conditions), models can:

• Identify hotspots where strikes cluster
• Predict when a hotspot is most likely to produce an incident
• Recommend where to deploy countermeasures (signage upgrades, barriers, rerouting rules)

One sentence I’d put on a slide for any city-fleet task force:

If you can predict where trucks get trapped, you can prevent the trap.

Real-time clearance monitoring and “last 500 yards” protection

Most bridge strikes happen in the final moments — not at the trip-planning stage.

AI-enabled approaches that help in that last stretch include:

• Geofenced audible alerts when entering known low-clearance zones
• Computer vision to recognize clearance signage and warn drivers (especially useful where signage is inconsistent)
• Telematics + map fusion: comparing planned route vs. actual path and escalating alerts when deviation increases clearance risk

This is where fleets can reduce dependence on “drivers noticing one sign at the right second” — a strategy that fails under stress, darkness, rain, or unfamiliar roads.

Compliance and liability: why fleets should act before enforcement catches up

Regulatory attention changes expectations. Even if the bill takes time to implement, it signals where safety oversight is heading.

Fleets that deploy truck-specific navigation and documentable prevention controls can create a cleaner story in the event of an incident:

• The company used truck-safe routing
• The company maintained accurate vehicle height records
• The company provided in-cab alerts and training
• The company monitored route deviations

If you’ve ever sat in on a post-incident review, you know the question isn’t “Did the driver make a mistake?” It’s “What did the system allow?”

Practical “bridge strike prevention stack” (what to implement now)

Here’s what works in the field — not theory:

1. Vehicle profile accuracy (non-negotiable)

   • Store tractor/trailer height (including tires, suspension, and mounted equipment)
   • Make height part of the dispatch workflow for every load

2. Truck-specific routing as the default

   • Block consumer navigation on company devices
   • Require route validation for last-mile, especially in metro areas

3. Exception management

   • Trigger alerts when drivers deviate from approved routes near known clearance hotspots

4. Hotspot library

   • Maintain an internal list of local low-clearance bridges and near-miss locations
   • Update it monthly using driver feedback and incident data

5. Coaching that’s tied to telemetry

   • Train using your own near-miss events, not generic slides

You don’t need a moonshot. You need boring consistency, backed by data.

What shippers and 3PLs should ask carriers (especially going into 2026 bids)

Bridge strikes aren’t just a carrier problem when service failures hit your dock schedule.

If you’re a shipper or 3PL, build these questions into onboarding and procurement:

• Do you use truck-specific navigation and routing constraints (height/weight)?
• How do you verify trailer height at dispatch, especially after trailer swaps?
• What happens when a driver deviates off-route — do you have real-time alerts?
• Can you report near-misses and clearance-related reroutes?
• Do you maintain a list of known clearance hotspots in your operating regions?

A carrier that can answer these clearly is less likely to surprise you with a “we hit a bridge” email at 6:12 a.m.

People also ask: truck-bridge strikes and AI routing

Is inaccurate GPS really a major cause of truck-bridge crashes?

Yes — especially when drivers rely on passenger-vehicle routing that ignores height and truck restrictions. The failure mode often shows up during detours and last-mile navigation.

Will a national clearinghouse actually reduce bridge strikes?

It can, if fleets and navigation providers use the data. Centralized reporting enables hotspot detection, standard countermeasures, and better map updates.

What’s the fastest way to reduce bridge strikes in a fleet?

Start with accurate vehicle height data and enforce truck-specific routing. Then add real-time deviation alerts near known low-clearance zones.

The stance: policy is the floor; AI safety is the advantage

The Bridges Not Bumpers Act of 2025 is pointing in the right direction: share the data, standardize learning, fund solutions. But the fastest reduction in truck-bridge strikes will come from fleets treating this as a core AI routing and compliance automation problem — not a once-a-year safety memo.

If you’re building an “AI in Transportation & Logistics” roadmap, put clearance prevention on it. It’s one of the rare initiatives that improves safety, on-time performance, and cost control at the same time.

If your network had to prove — with data — that it’s doing everything reasonable to prevent truck-bridge strikes, would you be comfortable with your current tools and processes?