re: Massive cargo ship narrowly avoided 2 Mississippi River crashes in Louisiana in 2 days

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Either move the piers where they won't get hit, or design them to withstand a big impact.

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Designing them to withstand a major impact is part of the typical design process. Consider, however, that the bridge in Baltimore was built almost 50 years ago. Just imagine how much larger and more massive the big ships have become since then.

Building piers where they won't get hit seems pretty simple. The main span of the Francis Scott Key bridge was/is over 1200 feet. How much more of an opening do you provide to believe that the piers are outside of the susceptible range?

Transportation engineering is always in catch-up mode. If you design for a certain load, industry will immediately begin pushing that envelope.