America's Scariest Bridge ?

I hate it. I've been on it about a dozen times and I just stare straight ahead. I don't look up, down, or side to side. I just wait to hit land on the other side then sigh.

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is 24 miles long and had to be built to account for the earth's curvature. Usually you can't see the other shore when you get on it.

It's also totally straight -- with no shoulders to pull off. A very scary drive.

Theres a bridge between NY and Ontario that spans the St Lawrence river, and in one direction or the other it is like ascending into blind space. Wellesley Island NY is in the middle of two spans of the big bridge.

Lovely part of the world, but scary-ass drive. I can never remember which part of the crossing, in which direction, bothers me. But I have driven it several times and always get a little freaked out.

Mary Tyler Moore's false teeth.

I disagree. It's not all that scary. But you know Ponch is patrolled. Not so the endless miles of I-10 over the swamps.

The Mackinac Bridge is scary because vehicles have blown off it and it frequently has extremely dense fog or high winds. The Tampa Skyway which has been hit by a boat and collapsed. Oakland Bay Bride because it has collapsed in an earthquake. But all things considered, the scariest bridges are the ones that feel like they are about to collapse, like the Chicago Skyway did before they did some work on it. Huey P. Long Bridge in Louisiana is also big and long and doesn't seem all that safe. Very narrow lanes. Some bridges at Memphis and elsewhere. But one that bothers me in particular:

The Ambassador Bridge. The sidewalks are damaged or missing, the structure looks ill-protected against rust, the bridge jumps every time a truck passes (which is all the time), and it sways noticeably. You can't get off because there is always a backup at Customs, and just a general sense of incompetence prevail. They were supposed to "Do" something about it but everything they've done has been a snafu and the new improved bridge, well, where is it? I can't believe the monopoly pirates who own the old bridge have held up a new one so long.

Astoria-Megler bridge across the mouth of the Columbia River. Going from south to north, you first spiral up an onramp so you start out over two hundred feet above the river. Then, a third of the way across the bridge becomes a water-level causeway, but to do that the bridge drops from from two hundred feet down to the water so it feels like you're driving straight down into the river!! No-fucking-thank-you!!

Diving--er, driving across the Columbia river

Driving the Mackinac Bridge with the radio giving a danger warning.

But the ice bridge is even scarier

The Tappan Zee is just about ready to come crashing down, unlike the Chesapeake.

The Oakland Bay Bridge (the claustrophobic lower deck) makes me shit my pants, because when I'm on it, I just think of it collapsing in an earthquake.

I loathe driving over the Tappan Zee even though it seems like a piker compared to seeing some of these other bridges.

How it stays up is one of the great mysteries.

I find all bridges scary. I have driven over the Tappan Zee bridge so often it doesn't scare me, but I don't like it all the same. The George Washington is scary, as is the bridge to Newport, RI. The new Jamestown bridge before the Newport bridge I can deal with.

I had a panic attack on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Some people have to be driven over it.

There is some bridge in Long Beach CA that is terrifying. I remember driving over it late at night when I was like 18. It is really high and you cant see what is ahead of you.

My college roommate got a summer job painting the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. He didn't last 3 days, but he lasted longer than about half the kids they hired.

And this is of course different from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, which is scary for other reasons.

Tampa Skyway creeps me out because you know half the drivers are drunk/stoned after 8 pm.

All the bridges in the U.S. Need their infrastructure worked on. No way am I am going on a bridge over a lake or river. All it takes is one catastrophe. One of the bridges in Arizona collapsed a couple of weeks ago, fortunately, there was very little traffic and a truck driver had minor injuries.. The government said it would be inspecting all the bridges after that but the way our system works, it's pretty sad since it's all about money and political connections. They give the work to their political cronies and these contract companies do the bare minimum.

The one that cost me the White House. And any that I physically cross.

Why don't you people just swim across?

Bring back ferries! None of this scary bridge and tunnel shit!

Either my car is going to careen from on high into a mighty river or that mighty river is going to crush that tunnel I'm driving through.

Ya bunch of pussies:

"Girls On Their Way To School In Nepal… No Bridge, No Other Way Than This"

I'd be more impressed if they tightrope walked it to and from school everyday.

In their flipflops.

R13

There was a young enterprising guy about a decade ago who started his own company that does drive people over the bridge who have anxiety about doing so themselves. I understand that it's been rather lucrative.

I found the bridge across Mobile Bay (I-10) rather daunting to get across.

Have any of you driven across the WVA bridge that collapsed in the movie The Mothman Prophecies?

The Bixby Bridge is a little concerning when driving over. It's over 80 years old and narrow & high up.

R14, was that the Gerald Desmond Bridge?

I have been on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel many times. What is so scary about it?

The Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys is a little nerve wracking. Cool as hell when I was a kid but now I get scared more easily. The abandoned train tracks (abandoned because of a massive hurricane in the 30s) don't help.

I think it is closed now but the St. Charles Rock Road Bridge in St. Charles County, MO used to scare the shit out of me. Hunks of concrete and railing would fall in the Missouri River as you drove across. My Dad used that bridge as a short cut until Mom made him stop.

For me it was the San Diego-Coronado bridge. The climb up heading to Coronado freaked me out. I ended up driving at 25 mph. with a line of cars behind. The way back was easier all down hill.

Have had to cross the Mighty Mac at 10 MPH because of high winds. What might not have been mentioned is that one lane each way is steel grating...so you can see straight down into the straits of Mackinac.

Remember when they used to announce that because of high winds XXX-Bridge was closed to semi-trucks and Volkswagens?

Not comforting during the decade or so I drove a string of ratty old VW Beetles.

There's always Galloping Gertie

A little rickety bridge on Martha's Vineyard gets my vote.

Add me the the Mackinac Bridge list. Closest I ever had to having a panic attack was on that one. In addition to it being long and high and windy as fuck, much of the road surface is that steel grate - which grabs your tires and takes a lot of your control away. I was gripping my steering wheel for dear life. By the time we got over, I was exhausted - and then an hour or so later, we had to go back over to get back to where we were staying.

Not normally afraid of heights - but that kicked in, too.

Wow, they REALLY went out of their way to make this into a story.

The Bridge Over Troubled Water is no picnic.

I always found the Pulaski Skyway terrifying. And the Jersey barriers in the left lane on the way there made me hate driving permanently.

I always enjoy the Pulaski Skyway. I find it impressive and beautiful. And driving over it makes me feel like I'm on a ride from a World's Fair of the 30s.

That doesn't mean I don't think it might collapse at any moment.

The old Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, SC was very scary. Lanes too narrow, thankfully it is gone now

I hate being stuck in traffic on The George Washington Bridge because it shakes -- noticeably shakes. Honorable mentions to The Bear Mountain Bridge, which appear to be magically suspended between a mountain pass, The 59th Street Bridge, which used to have grating on the road and walkways that allowed you to look down at the water underneath you while you crossed, The Driscoll Bridge in NJ because it is in NJ and the above mentioned Pulaski Skyway.

I'll have to go with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. I had a panic attack, too, and had to have my passenger talk me over it while I was driving. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge (the new Galloping Gertie) now has two bridges now, and the Astoria, OR bridge isn't scary to me. But never, ever again with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, even as a passenger.

Driving across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge never scared me, maybe because of the idea of "safety" half way across at Yerba Buena Island.

My bete noir, the one that causes me to break in a cold sweat at the toll booth, is San Francisco's own Golden Gate Bridge. I hold my breathe from the toll booth, drive as fast as practicable, stay out of the right lane, stare straight ahead, all the while having a major panic attack that the BIG ONE, the mutha of all earthquakes, is going to hit, and the bridge will collapse. I exhale when I get back on to terra firma.

^^breath, not breathe^^

I always wondered just how bad it is to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. Not that I want to!

Anyone ever have any sucess in overcoming a fear of driving over bridges? What worked? What didn't? What type of professional help did you seek?

Golden Gate is not bad because you don't have to go up like a roller coaster.

The woman who went off the Mackinac Bridge in her '87 Yugo probably killed that brand for the US.

The Tallahatchie Bridge

What an interesting and unexpected thread.

[quote]My bete noir, the one that causes me to break in a cold sweat at the toll booth, is San Francisco's own Golden Gate Bridge. I hold my breathe from the toll booth, drive as fast as practicable, stay out of the right lane, stare straight ahead

While it doesn't affect your experience or your story, I did want to point out that there are no more toll booths on the GGB. They've gone to 100% automated tolling.

The Might Mac is currently closed due to high winds.

A fun Sunday drive in the SF Bay area was traveling all around the Bay by driving on the bridges in the free directions

I can recall the old Jamestown bridge in Rhode Island. It was a mesh surface. Now it's just a concrete hump.

But when it was mesh - you just floored the gas pedal and flew over it as quickly as you could.

I've taken the bay bridge, the golden gate, and the antioch bridge- all our nightmares. The bridges in Portland are sturdy with a lot of railing, they are ok.

It's not legendary like the Chesapeake Bay and Pontchartrain, and R31's was so awful, but for me growing up the Old Lewis Bridge over the Mississippi to Alton, Illinois, was terrorizing. It was a two-lane with nasty old girders and chunks of cement missing with rebar showing, but it had a lot of truck traffic and came with a bend partway across it. As a kid I loved bridges but that one would scare the hell out of me, especially crossing in winter with ice on the roadway. Christ.

One scary part of the Newport RI bridge is that there is no shoulder to pull over. I drove over the bridge, several times in fact. Once, I tried to go north off the island and planned on taking I-95 west. The trouble was that at some point I-95 branches off and it is easy to get off. I ended up having to drive through the back roads through the city. Directions I was given were near useless. The experience was so awful that I would rather drive over that darn bridge than go through that experience of getting lost again.

R45 has seen too many disaster/action movies where the Golden Gate Bridge is destroyed. And he doesn't remember that it was the BAY Bridge that partially collapsed during the last good-sized earthquake, the Golden Gate bridge was okay.

No, until very recently, the real danger on the Golden Gate bridge was the total absence of a center divider! There are six lanes, and the designers got the bright idea of moving the center divider to accommodate traffic flow - so until this year the only thing that kept oncoming traffic off of your face was the flimsy plastic movable thingies shown in this picture. I never drove in the left lane, no matter how bad the traffic, because if an oncoming driver was hammered or gawking, there was absolutely nothing between me and a head-on collision. But last week there was a lightweight concrete divider in place, one that could be moved by a specialized truck. That's not much, but it IS better than nothing.

I loathe driving on bridges. I live in San Diego, and once had a bad panic attack driving across the Coronado Bridge.

That Mackinac does look terrifying in those pictures. There should be shrines before you cross that thing so you can stop and pray before going over it.

And I don't even believe in God!

Being shot into space seems safer.

I had to look it up since it was years ago, but a bridge in Washington State by Whidby Island called the Deception Pass Bridge. Not so much for driving, but walking. There is a narrow walkway on the outside of each side of the bridge. When my family walked across, I could only make it out about 50 feet before I became frozen in the spot I was in and had to inch my way back. Worse, as it is Washington, it was an incredibly foggy day and even out that short distance I couldn't see a thing. Reading this thread brought it all back!

When I lived in Mobile, Alabama I did not find the bridges that ran from Alabama through Louisiana to be scary at all. Mackinac Island is a totally different story..good god I white knuckled it across that bridge. DAMN SCARY, there was wind. I now know to stay the hell of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, good thing I reach the Eastern Shore via Delaware.

I googled pictures of the Macinack Bridge to see what was so scary, and found this picture.

Christ, you don't tell me that cars drive on that metal grid? In Midwestern weather?

I think its been widened now, but the Huey P. Long bridge over the Mississippi in New Orleans had the narrowest lanes I've ever driven. No shoulders whatsoever, and the sides were literally inches from your mirrors. The right lane featured open railing (with two horizontal bars and one vertical bar per segment) so that you could admire the frighteningly wide river far below. It was even better to drive across it in the dark.

[quote' you don't tell me that cars drive on that metal grid? In Midwestern weather?

R65, from what I read (because of this thread), on the Mackinac Bridge the right lane in each direction is paved, while the passing (center) lanes are grid.

That's right, r67. And some times due to weather you are only allowed to drive on the inside lane.

[R58] Went over the Old Lewis Bridge once as a kid to shop at an outlet store in Alton. It was terrible and just like the Rock Road Bridge. I am amazed there were not more fatalities off those bridges. I used to have nightmares about driving off a bridge and wake up in a cold sweat.

Hey, nervous nellies, here's some pictures of the perfectly real Eshima Ohashi Bridge in Japan!

Do the pictures give you vertigo, or what?

I traveled over this bridge a couple of times to visit relatives. The last time I declined their invitation to visit. After watching this video you might understand why. They can visit me since there are no scary-ass bridges to cross.

The 'Oh my God' bridge near Quepos, Costa Rica is no longer - the nearby marina built a new bridge across the river, but, I've driven across it a few times, and have gone across in buses. I've read of tourists arriving at the bridge, and turning back. There are however, similar bridges down here, and occasionally some of them collapse, but usually not on the tourist trail. This site covers many of the mentioned bridges above, and more in other countries.

[quote]No, until very recently, the real danger on the Golden Gate bridge was the total absence of a center divider! There are six lanes, and the designers got the bright idea of moving the center divider to accommodate traffic flow - so until this year the only thing that kept oncoming traffic off of your face was the flimsy plastic movable thingies

Flimsy plastic lane divider thingies, and on at night, tule fog so thick and engulfing that you can barely see the car in front of you. And in that eerie, engulfing cloud mass, you are suddenly stopped due in traffic. On a mile-long suspension bridge opened in 1937, 220 feet above treacherous San Francisco Bay. You can't see anything but the tail lights of the car in front of you and the heavy fog all around you.

The 59th Street Bridge used to have the grid like the Mackinac for both vehicles and pedestrians. The 59th Street Bridge also has these one lane outer roadways where you could look to the side and see water and then look ahead in the road and see water. It was always fun being on the outer roadway behind an accident or broken down car -- you'd be stuck for hours sometimes.

During the '60s, my mom lived in New Orleans and would take the train home to Birmingham to visit my grandparents. Crossing Lake Pontchartrain always freaked her out.

George and Martha: love him, hate her

For this site it's the eldergays eating any food they have to chew.

HA HA HA HA HA

I developed a terror of bridges when I was having anxiety in my 30s. It faded when my overall anxiety faded. Such a weird thing. I think it had to do with a fear of loss of control - like I would suddenly veer off and plunge down. When I left my miserable stressful job, it was one of many dramatic improvements in my life - offset by living in near poverty.

I've crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. It's two side-by-side two-line bridges built 1952 and 1973.

It was slightly scary as a child but as a driver it's unnerving for me, the transparency at the sides where there should be even just a bit of a curb, but there is nothing, just glimpse's off the table top to the cold grey bay below. It has its own weather and can be very windy when lower roadway on either side is dead still, and I have driven across it in heavy snow and heavy rain. Sometimes the lanes are redirected that a span with have bi-directional traffic, neither better not worse really, just a different sort of white knuckle drive.

R16- AGREED. Some asshole is forever causing a crash or running out of gas in there.

The old Tappan Zee Bridge was pretty bad. Big chunks of it would just fall into the river.

Bridges don't bother me so much. What's scary is cable cars. The air tram between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island is one of the scariest things I've ever been on. It just rocks back and forth over NYC traffic.

I've driven the Chesapeake Bay numerous times and it never bothered me. It's exhilarating.

R31 has a good one, but worse in the area was the old Clark Bridge over the Mississippi between Alton, Ill, and St. Louis County. It was built without real railings and towards the end gaps in the pavement would appear. When I was a teen riding in a friend's car without a floor in the back I could see the river below at times. It was so narrow that it was only with extreme care that you didn't scrape against trucks going the other way, and on weekend nights with all the drunks going both ways it was a death trap. Plus it had a ridiculous turn in Alton and if the drunks manage to make it home to Alton they could always sail through off the cliff anyway.

Not that the old Chain of Rocks (still there) was much better. The angled turn in that one is halfway across the Mississippi.

The Mackinac Bridge is the only bridge that's ever spooked me. I've driven most of the other ones mentioned in this thread, but the Mackinac is windy, has a high angle, and has steel grates that grab your wheels. I remember a news story saying there's a rest stop on either side of the bridge where you can get someone to drive your car over the bridge if you want.

R72, great website!

There's some smallish bridge on the coast of Georgia or South Carolina that goes up pretty steepish and has the narrowest lanes of any bridge I've ever been on. I was driving a small Nissan and barely fit in my lane

There is/was a very narrow laned bridge in Cincinnati