Discussion for article #240994
Okay, fess up. Who was praying to Satan? C’mon. Was it you!?
Those duck vehicles are typically WWII surplus. Brake failure?
Couple months back I was reading through itineraries and these guys were listed. My condolences
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The front left wheel popped off as the Duck was changing lanes and it veered into a charter bus heading in the opposite direction. The bus was carrying North Seattle Community College students and faculty. Four people confirmed dead on the scene and dozens injured, several critically. I live close by – there is no barrier between opposing lanes of traffic on this bridge and cars are traveling at high speeds. Its always nerve wracking driving this stretch of highway.
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Fucking things are a nuisance. The duck tours, double-decker trolley-buses and tour buses are a menace here in Boston, frequently doing shit like driving super slow and taking up two lanes, parking in traffic and paying no attention to smaller vehicles to the side of them while changing lanes. They fucking SUCK. Duck tours even has a habit of initiating the draw bridge near the Science Museum in the middle of rush hour because the prickholes apparently think it’s funny.
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“military-style”
No. MILITARY. Period. These are decommissioned landing vehicles and the visibility the driver has, particularly for anything close in front of the vehicle, is next to none.
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Never liked crossing the bridge on the way to work just a couple of blocks North… Obsolete bridge that needed replacing the day it first opened.
Those double decker tour busses are the worst. In Los Angeles, they take pride in riding through rush hour traffic and touring the stars homes, so their little “lookey-looer” customers can enjoy the infamous LA rush hour traffic. As you said, they take up two lanes and block intersections. I am so glad I retired and moved away from the insanity
I’m a dispatcher for a courier company based in Seattle and I’ve been following this all day. This is on top of all the traffic problems caused by Chinese President Xi Jinping three day visit.
The Ducks have been a part of Seattle for as long as I can remember, and while there have been incidents before, there has been nothing like this.
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I was just saying to myself, “Well, that nonsense is over now that they’ve killed some people” when I got to the part about Ride the Ducks’ history of killing people. Come ON, Seattle.
The Ducks are everywhere.
You’re joking, right? The bridge has been there since 1932. As the only four-lane road that did not use a drawbridge, it was hardly overwhelmed by traffic even as late as the early 60s when they were finishing I-5.
There was another incident several years ago on a lake in Arkansas involving one of these amphibious “Duck” boats. The structure holding up the canvas cover collapsed, and several people drowned in just a few feet of water near the dock because they became entangled and were submerged beneath the heavy wet canvas.
Amphibious: death traps on land AND water
Your key word was 4 lane, then they decided to make it 6 without any upgrade. And yes it was obsolete when opened as it was designed using older ideas and technology even for 1932. For me I much preferred using the Fremont bridge even tho I’d get stopped once in a while when the span was up, take it and wave to the troll as I made my way to work near Greenlake.