A work van on Thursday clipped the low wooden cover of Long Grove’s Robert Parker Coffin Bridge, scraping the vehicle and providing yet another viral security-camera clip for locals to shake their heads at. It is only the latest in a long-running saga: since the covered span reopened in 2020, it has been hit dozens of times, prompting inspections, repairs, and plenty of online rubbernecking. Downtown business owners and village officials say the real story is as much about routing and driver choices as it is about the bridge itself.
As reported by ABC7 Chicago, a nearby business captured video of the van striking the Robert Parker Coffin Bridge. The station notes that the span is flanked by multiple low-clearance warnings, yet over-height vehicles keep testing their luck. The newest clip simply joins a growing reel of hits documented by shop cameras and social media posts.
Decades of dings, sturdier cover
The one-lane truss was rebuilt and reinforced after a damaging 2018 crash and reopened in 2020, when the village formally renamed the covered span the Robert Parker Coffin Bridge by resolution. According to the Daily Herald, officials logged the 73rd strike since reopening in early February, a tally that shows how routine these collisions have become. Village records show the board approved the renaming and ordered updated signs to match. Village documents explain that the wooden cover was built over a steel-reinforced truss to shield the historic 1906 structure.
Why drivers keep clipping the top
Local reporting points to navigation apps and distracted driving, not a lack of warning signs, as the usual culprits. "It keeps the town busy," Rachael Swift, who owns a downtown shop, told CBS Chicago after seeing previous strikes. Officials have tried working with mapping services on re-routing and have floated more physical or electronic interventions, while cautioning that every change has tradeoffs for deliveries and residents.
Some nearby businesses have turned the ongoing drama into a kind of roadside theater. Neumann’s Cigars, just steps from the bridge, has handed out free cigars when crashes occur and has shared security footage that racks up millions of views, the local WBBM affiliate reported. Those uploads now double as an informal public archive for reporters and neighbors tracking each fresh hit.
Village leaders emphasize that the sacrificial cover is doing its job by absorbing damage so the 1906 truss underneath survives. As Village President Bill Jacob told the Daily Herald, "The bridge always wins." For now, the latest van strike is just one more entry in a running local chronicle that residents, shopkeepers and officials keep trying, and occasionally laughing, their way through.
