Does This Viral Video Actually Show a Nightmarishly Steep Bridge?
A video of a terrifyingly steep bridge that went viral again in December has the internet both horrified and baffled.
According to KPNX, footage of the bridge was viewed more than 5 million times when it was posted earlier in 2019.
The viral video racked up another 2.6 million views after it was posted to Twitter on Dec. 16.
nope!!! – no way!!! – not me!!! – would you go on this overpass??? pic.twitter.com/LeNA21DWcQ
— Sean Kaen (@OddNMacabre) December 16, 2019
KPNX reported that the viral bridge footage has actually been circulating around the internet for more than 4 years.
So is the bridge actually real?
It turns out, the answer is yes. Well, sort of.
The Eshima Ohashi Bridge is a real bridge located in southern Japan that connects two cities separated by the Nakaumi lake.
The bridge was designed with enough height to allow ships to pass beneath it; however, the bridge is not actually as steep as it appears from the angle in the video.
According to Japan travel website JNTO, the gradient of the bridge is only 6.1 percent on one side and 5.1 percent on the other.
In contrast, the Guinness World record-holder for steepest road in the world is located in a northern Wales town, boasting a 37.5 percent gradient.
People who have been to the bridge have posted photos online and reviews on TripAdvisor that reveal its incline only looks so intense because of the video’s perspective.
It looks worse than it actually is from this point of view.
A side view shows the incline as rather moderate.
Same bridge: pic.twitter.com/fcxeFVCPUO— MyassesDragon (@MyassesDragon) December 16, 2019
In reality, the bridge only appears to be so terrifying in the video because of the angle at which it was taken.
video perspective head on is terrifying but look at side view not so bad. still steeper than normal but not impossible: pic.twitter.com/OSRhuI7NlJ
— david r. (@mudcaulks) December 16, 2019
When you look at the street view of the bridge on Google Maps, in fact, it doesn’t look very steep at all.
KPNX revealed that the optical illusion comes from the kind of camera that was used to take the video.
A wide angle camera lens compresses the depth of the photo.
When the camera dips down, the ground can be seen at the bottom of the frame, revealing that the video was taken from far away.
According to JNTO, to get the bridge to look impossibly steep, the photos must be taken at an intersection on the west side of the bridge.
Visitors don’t actually have to fear getting stuck on their way up or sliding down the incline.
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