The days are getting shorter, the air crisper and Boston’s student hangouts more crowded — that’s right, “Storrowing” season is here.
Trying a new way to reach college students and their parents before they damage their rental trucks, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation released a parody video pleading with newcomers.
“Do your part by looking for the signs, and, together, we can not hit a bridge with a truck. The bridges — and the trucks — will thank you,” a DCR employee says in the video.
With move-in day right around the corner, overpasses all over the Boston area need your help. They need to not be hit by a moving truck on Storrow Drive or Soldiers Field in Boston & Memorial Drive in Cambridge. Plan your move in day route accordingly & watch for the signs! pic.twitter.com/Wkfgcg6Nx3 — MassDCR (@MassDCR) August 23, 2023
Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters.
The video takes its cue from old ASPCA animal rescue ads that used to be ubiquitous on TV, which were also set to the forlorn Sarah McLachlan song “Angel.” In those ads, McLachlan noted that viewers could support needy animals for only a few dollars a month; in the DCR video, the narrator says that, “For just $0 a day, you can not hit a bridge or an overpass.”
‘Storrowed’: 10 Years of Photos of Stuck Trucks on Boston’s Storrow Drive
For the uninitiated, at least once every few months, a person driving a truck will miss the many signs — “We put signs up everywhere,” the video notes — about low clearance on Boston’s Storrow Drive and Soldiers Field Road or, across the Charles River, on Cambridge’s Memorial Drive, and the top of the vehicle will hit an overpass. Often, the impact of a “Storrowing” will open the roof up like a tin can.
Many of the incidents happen around Sept. 1, when most of Boston’s leases start and rental trucks fill the streets, many driven by people from out of town moving for college or grad school and who aren’t familiar with the local roads.
In a familiar scene, a truck was crumpled under a bridge on Boston’s Storrow Drive.
The new video offers some helpful, if tongue-in-cheek, advice for drivers rushing around the city.
“Save a rented moving truck today by not blindly following your GPS directly into a low-clearance bridge. They even put the height of your truck right on your side. You can usually see it right in your rear-view mirror,” the DCR employee says.
NBC10 Boston has reached out to DCR for more information on the inspiration for the video.
