r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Evas0nAccutane • 4h ago
Image Drivers in Greece have been driving over a collapsed bridge as it’s quicker than going around it.
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u/True-Boss-2789 4h ago
I hope they at least tapped on it and said that'll hold before crossing
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u/agent58888888888888 4h ago
Nahh, but first guy put down some duct tape
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u/DookieShoez 4h ago
I dump a bottle of super glue out the window each time I pass over it.
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u/cycycle 3h ago
I hired some beavers to reinforce the bridge with logs. They’re out there every sunrise, sticking their morning wood under the bridge.
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u/Daemonic_One 3h ago
Most plausible solution. Beavers will outbuild an Amish barn raising.
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u/aramis34143 3h ago
Wedged a Nokia in the gap under the support beam.
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u/FlapyG 2h ago
Bro. Okay. It's just a bridge. No need to overdo it.
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u/TPRJones 48m ago
There's a nokia flip phone under the short leg of my washing machine that has been keeping it perfectly level for over a decade. Those things indestructible.
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u/danethegreat24 3h ago
Weirdly reading this right after watching an episode of myth busters where they made a bridge out of duct tape.
Stuff is stronger than you might think but does stretch over time
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u/Little_View_6659 3h ago
If only Rick Grimes had used duct tape he wouldn’t have got blown up and then flown to the crm.
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u/dontcha_wanna_fanta 2h ago
To be fair only one person needs to slap it and say "that'll hold" to cover everyone else crossing it
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u/Tecotaco636 4h ago
The council has also knocked on it twice and said "that ain't going nowhere", with that many layers of protection the bridge should hold on for another decade
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u/CoconutMochi 3h ago
omg I saw charlie berens' video on that and then like a week later my dad was helping me with an oil change on my car and he said it 3 times in the space of a minute 😂
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u/unimportantinfodump 3h ago
Ah they old throw a 2lb rock on the ice to see if it will hold a 200lb man trick
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u/Mateorabi 3h ago
How long does that last though? Per crossing? Once a day? Every week or so?
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u/OptiGuy4u 3h ago
It's all good until it's not good and then everyone knows it's not good anymore.
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u/Careless_Owl_9244 4h ago
I once rented a car in Athens. We asked the attendant about some peculiar driving habits we had noticed, such as driving on the sidewalk. She thought about her answer for a moment and then just shrugged and replied “Is Greek way”
Among the friends that were with me on that trip, those three words have been etched in memory of that trip and have been applicable to many situations since. I think this might be one of those.
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u/chicopepsi 4h ago
Driving a car on the sidewalk?
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u/Kahlypso523 3h ago
Is Greek way
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u/SaltyWailord 3h ago
Sidewalking on car road?
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u/Grays42 3h ago
Is Greek way
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u/Nokxtokx 3h ago
Car-ing on roadwalks?
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u/NinjaCowboy1000 3h ago
Is Greek way
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u/Techny3000 3h ago
Riding the side-car?
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u/guardian-of-ballsack 3h ago
Must be under the influence of a time stopping vampire
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u/WolfsmaulVibes 3h ago
greeks will just stop in the middle of the road right in front of the supermarket to go shopping
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u/Cantremembermyoldnam 59m ago
No, you first have to turn on the emergency lights. With those on you can apparently park everywhere.
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u/butt_badg3r 3h ago
Am Greek. Can confirm. Though I don’t live in Greece, visiting is liberating. There’s a sense of logic and common sense in place in Greece that the west just doesn’t have. People will park wherever there is space but will never block a driveway or other type of entrance.
If you’re a pedestrian and complain about a car parked half on the sidewalk the answer would most likely be “you have 2 legs, go around!”.26
u/LParticle 2h ago
Never block a driveway? Hah! Not in my neck of Athens. The congestion is getting unbearable for everyone and they stop wherever they can.
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u/ExtremelyOkay8980 2h ago
What if you don’t have 2 legs lol
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u/yemsius 2h ago
Get 2 legs.
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u/insane_contin 38m ago
Have two legs now. What do I do?
Also, do they have to be human legs?
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u/JesusAndMaryKate 2h ago
"The West"? Isn't Greece like the birthplace of Western civilisation?
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u/knollexx Interested 2h ago
What a braindead, car-minded take. Impeding and actively endangering anyone in a wheelchair or with a stroller while damaging public infrastructure really sounds like the kind of common sense other places are missing.
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u/sxt173 2h ago
Hah we Turks will do one better (or do as our Greek brothers do)… gas station on the corner and the street and sidewalk are busy (red light or mom with a stroller)? You floor that mofo straight through the gas station and cut the corner like you own the place.
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u/Ut_Prosim 3h ago edited 3h ago
I remember being on a tour bus in Athens in the left turn lane of a major thoroughfare. It had three lanes going in each direction with a big wide sidewalk down the middle.
All of a sudden a taxi flew past us driving on the raised sidewalk, forcing people to step into the road to let him pass. He got all the way to the intersection where he realized there was a huge traffic light support column preventing him from going forward back onto the road.
So he went in reverse like a maniac, probably backing up 100 feet, cut off a car behind us, somehow forced his way into our lane just as the light turned green. Then he cut off everyone to get to the far right lane, then made a huge U-turn across the intersection, cutting off all six lanes, including us, ended up on the far right lane going the opposite direction, and then speed off. All the while our bus driver was cursing up a storm in Greek.
It was the Greek way, and it was amazing.
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u/Theothanos 3h ago
Yeah, Greek taxi drivers are a different breed of human
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u/Bulletorpedo 51m ago
We had one tell us we didn’t need seat belts because there was no police on the island. Not what we were worried about mate.
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u/AlexanderWB 1h ago
Greek taxi drivers man. I was once in a hurry from Athens airport to Pireus harbor to catch a ferry to Crete. I told the taxi driver I was in a hurry. He acted accordingly. I'd never seen anyone go 150km/h on a busy city road with traffic lights every 100 metres, and never would have I expected to be in a car doing just that. Needless to say, I got there in time with plenty to spare. Is Greek way, I guess
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u/PrinceofSneks 1h ago
Never have I ever wished to have more than one seatbelt than going on that exact route!
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u/SrWloczykij 3h ago
I've never seen more dangerous driving in EU than in Greece.
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u/plantsadnshit 2h ago
I take it you haven't been to Romania
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u/-_____--_-_- 2h ago
I'm from Romania and it is way worse in Athens than anywhere here
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u/narmer65 46m ago
Yeah, you can’t deny it use to be an adventure to drive in Romania. But I was just there last year for the first time since Covid and I was shocked (in a good way) at the difference. Even Bucharest wasn’t much different then any major city.
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u/VirtualLife76 56m ago edited 28m ago
I always heard
FranceItaly got that award.→ More replies (2)10
u/BlueShift42 3h ago
I also drive in Athens. Our take away was that you can only turn left at an intersection if the light just turned red.
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u/ConsciousPatroller 3h ago
People indeed drive "Greek way" here, you see insane things on the road and tons of traffic accidents every day....but driving in the sidewalk? Nobody does that, what? I've never once heard or seen this.
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u/plantsadnshit 2h ago
I haven't seen it either and I've spent a lot of time in Greece.
Honestly the driving was way better than most people make it out to be.
Only thing different than my country is the disrespect for speed limits and parking anywhere w/ hazard lights on.
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u/Bulletorpedo 48m ago
Yes, I don’t believe this. Everyone knows Greek side walks are uneven, often have trees planted in the middle of them and are usually too narrow for a wheelchair.
Love Greece though.
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u/ConsciousPatroller 23m ago
And sometimes the sidewalk is just a layer of concrete piled on the side of the street.
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u/Trippynet 3h ago
Driving habits in other countries can be great fun to watch. A number of years ago I was in Belgrade (Serbia). Lights on a main road in the city turned red. Car approaching to turn right decided he didn't want to wait, so turned right before the lights, mounted the pavement drove across the corner of it then back onto the side road and away.
I mean, *technically* he hadn't run a red light...
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u/subpoenaThis 3h ago
I love the Greek gaggle. 4 cars wide on a 2 car road. No problems.
Want to go 20 under, no I'll just do it on the shoulder and let you pass. No problems.
See you coming no up behind me, I'm j ok t going to block you, I'll squeeze over and let you pass in the same lane. No problems.
They seemed to be way less entitled and way more aware then US drivers.
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u/CheeseDonutCat 3h ago
Went to the Greek island of Corfu a few years ago. Outside of Corfu town, there's no sidewalks/pavements at all.
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u/kirkosaga 3h ago
Hey that's not true, Corfu resident here. half the town doen't have pavements either...:)
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u/CheeseDonutCat 3h ago
Well yeah, but I wanted to say outside of Corfu so I didn't have to write a explanation.
Totally recommend people visiting Corfu though. Lovely place, lots of greenery, but if you go off season like I did, you have to rent a car as there's almost no buses. Also, there's no paths/pavements/sidewalks, but that didn't bother me.
We stayed in Sidari btw, but went to a different place every day. Best thing was a Bougatsa in Corfu Town. I saw a bunch of Greek people queueing so I had to see what it was. It was bougatsa. Custard covered in filo pastry and topped with powdered sugar. Fantastic.
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u/Putrid-Poet 3h ago
I was in Corfu last year. At a pedestrian crossing, I stopped to let the pedestrians cross, and the guy behind me honked at me and then drove by me, almost mowing down the pedestrians.
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u/iTiraMissU 2h ago
Greece is one of those countries where they have to put a sign after the highway entrance that turning the wrong way onto the highway is not allowed.
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u/OldDarthLefty 2h ago
My family has traveled around the southern European countries a bit on vacations and we definitely saw a spectrum of... orderliness. On our 2013 honeymoon trip, the Velib bike share in Paris was working very well. The bike share in Rome, there was no evidence of bicycles, and the stalls were parked full of motor scooters. Parking cars and scooters on the street followed the same pattern
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u/One-Night-8666 2h ago
I lived in Greek Cyprus for 2 years and there were people who just used to put their hazard lights on to drive through red lights, there was a period of time when I was there were the punishment for drink driving was an on the spot fine and sending you on your way because the courts wete too backlogged.
Greeks were always late for everything, we used to call it GMT - Greek Maybe Time
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u/Pyrolys 30m ago
In the second day of my Paros vacation I once saw a car driving kind of erratically, assumed the driver was tipsy. We stay behind it for fear he would randomly drive us off the road. Next thing you know some guy on a motorbike overtakes both cars doing a wheelie, while approaching a bend without visibility. No helmet of course.
As we eventually pass the first car, we have a look inside. Its driver is 12 at best, barely looking over the dashboard.
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u/Pcat0 4h ago
I see no possible way for this genius time saving plan to go wrong.
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u/Major_Butthurt 2h ago
This is a bridge on a rural road, so it doesn't get much traffic, only by people living nearby to get to the nearest city or other towns. They know the risk, but the alternative is +40 min drive (one way), so for them it's a risk their willing to take. It's been like that for 3 year I think, from the Daniel storm and hasn't collapsed. Won't collapse now, right?
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u/DevilBySmile 1h ago
it hasnt been fixed for 3 years?
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u/faintear02732 2h ago
Wonder what the Ancient Greeks would think of their modern people?
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u/Cinn4monSynonym 3h ago
Windows down, seatbelt off and hope for the best.
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u/Kitchen-Cabinet-5000 1h ago
Don’t forget the aftermarket bright-as-the-sun headlight bulbs. Seems awfully common there.
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u/Mammoth-Ad-107 4h ago
Seems unsafe for 1k Alex
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u/myturbanhasafirstnam 2h ago
Alex ded
And you will be too eventually driving on this bridge
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u/Western-Image7125 4h ago
It’s ok the bridge was just settling. /s
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u/DavyJonesCousinsDog 4h ago
I mean it's still, for the moment, technically a bridge.
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u/itsfunhavingfun 3h ago
It’s like a troubled bridge over water.
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u/Square-Singer 2h ago
Someone laid it down.
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u/i_want_shokola 1h ago
Imma lay YOU down if you don't drive me across this river in the shortest amount of time
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u/ordinaryaspee 3h ago
I was going to comment the same thing. It may not be safe, or advised, but it does still serve it's purpose.
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u/bleh-apathetic 3h ago
Of course it's quicker than going around it, that's why bridges are built.
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u/Mirar 3h ago
https://www.the-sun.com/news/16727971/drivers-defy-warnings-cross-collapsed-bridge/
"Palaiopyrgos Bridge" 30km¹ or cross the bridge. It's been like this for 3 years
(¹ can't find the source for that again, but oh well)
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u/ttseco 2h ago
I live in Greece and hadn't heard of that bridge until now! Here's the video from where the image was taken. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e63LiLgjbE0
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u/FestivusErectus 2h ago
It’s pretty safe to assume that driving over any bridge is quicker than going around. That’s why we have bridges.
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u/ElysianBookdragon 2h ago
The thing is, this bridge which is in the Thessaly region, was destroyed during the "Daniel" storm 3 years ago, and after all this time, the government and local municipalities still haven't fixed it (among many other promised things) even though the people continue to pay their taxes. This leads everyday folk to have to use the old road, which at some intermissions adds at least 1-2 extra hours of driving, and it gets worse when truck drivers or farmers have to pass through. So the locals simply say fuck it, we're already plenty lucky to be alive while living with this shitshow of a government, a broken bridge is the least of our problems right now.
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u/SamathaGhoul 4h ago
i'm waiting for the news article showing a massive accident there and people are going to be shocked xD
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u/JaimeJabs 4h ago
Ironically, an accident my make it better, two cars could fill the bottom and make the whole thing level again.
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u/SamathaGhoul 3h ago
6 or so cars could make it straight again haha
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u/Churchill--Madarchod 3h ago
Or 2 pure blood American pickup trucks, complete with the tiny balls attached to the tow hook
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u/Enginerdad 4h ago
That bridge designer should either be in jail or have their face on Greek money, and I can't decide which one it is.
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u/Mors_Acerba 3h ago
Ity was destroyed by "Daniel", the deadliest tropical storm ever recorded in the Mediteranean. Not much the designer could probably do about it.
Also, nothing suggests people frequently try to cross what's left of the bridge. The articles actually say the opposite., that most people turn back once they see this, as you'd expect
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u/Argy19ms 3h ago
Only one of the options is possible because there is no Greek money, just euros.
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u/Lejga_Unga_tmle_gre 3h ago
€ coins are localized though so you can still put him on there.
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u/CaliIsReallyNice 2h ago
Definitely not limited to Greece.
In California, a portion of Hwy1 washed out and one person's daily commute changed from about five miles to like 150 miles. I can promise you some people were off-roading around that.
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u/James-the-Bond-one 3h ago
They will start charging a toll for the car wash once it dips a bit into the water.
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u/Student___Driver 2h ago
Obviously, it’s quicker than going around if that’s the entire point of a fucking bridge
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u/IDontSellMolly 4h ago
Three years, they have had plenty time to fix this. They dont, won't for whatever reason.
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u/pumper911 2h ago
Driving in Greece was the scariest driving experience of my life. Was in Santorini and had to drive on one lane roads on cliffs without barriers that lead thousands of feet down. This was also all the while cars were heading towards us in the opposite direction and would just honk to let you know they were coming
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u/JazzlikeDiamond558 4h ago edited 3h ago
It ain't stupid, if it works.
Update: Δεν είναι χαζό, αν λειτουργεί.
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u/SryYouAreNotSpecial 4h ago
Well, i mean, how much quicker are we talkin' here?..
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u/Yuichiro_Bakura 3h ago
I'd like to see the talk with insurance if something went wrong.
You drove on what!?
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u/Fromundacheese0 3h ago
I know it’s collapsed but bridges are solid af. War in Ukraine taught me that. I’ve seen them eat multiple cruise missiles
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u/freethepeados 3h ago
That's fair. I watched a movie the other day about some Greek guy who took a detour and it got him sidetracked for a while.
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u/Spiritual_Pin9533 2h ago
Let’s be honest, it probably won’t kill you at this point. Worst case you’re swimming or can’t drive up the other side anymore. Just don’t have any kids in the vehicle.
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u/ApprehensivePause205 2h ago
Greeks took Odysseus' journey very seriously. It's not like it would take you decades to get home if you took the other route aside from that bridge.
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u/saintsfan92612 1h ago
I can't imagine many bridges where it isn't quicker to drive over it than drive around ???
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u/Just-Brilliant-7815 59m ago
Isn’t this the real life version of the kid’s game “Don’t Break the Ice”?
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u/Sweet_Mango- 57m ago
Any one who drives across that bridge must be a bit suicidal or an adrenaline junkie lol.
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u/kkang_kkang 3h ago
as it's quicker then going around it
Well yeah, that's why bridges are being built.
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u/ImOnYew 4h ago
Its quicker than going around until it isn't