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The idea seems so obvious, you wonder why someone didn’t think of it earlier: Require regular inspections of all privately owned pedestrian bridges in North Carolina that span state roads.
To those who are lying in hospital beds with broken limbs and other injuries sustained in the pedestrian walkway collapse at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, the need for such inspections must seem painfully obvious, too.
Yet, it wasn’t obvious to anyone until the catastrophe occurred. The state required that the bridge’s design and construction meet engineering and safety criteria, according to state Sen. David Hoyle of Gaston. “But we never thought about anybody continuing to inspect them. In your wildest imagination, you don’t think of things like that falling down.”
He’s right; we don’t. We put great faith in our human feats of engineering, which have taken us to the moon and beyond and built soaring skyscrapers than can withstand an earthquake’s mighty heaves.
It’s only after the fact — when a Titanic goes down, or a Challenger blows up, or crash debris shears into racing fans — that we are reminded of how it takes only one slight miscalculation, or one small oversight, to set the stage for disaster.
The state’s decision to require that all pedestrian bridges be inspected every two years comes too late to help the 107 people injured in Saturday’s accident. Hindsight won’t heal their injuries, or erase the memories of their traumatic plunge.
But it will reduce the risks for other bridge pedestrians, and make them less likely to wonder whether they’re really walking on air.
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