Method for alerting drivers of elevational barriers

1 . A method for generating a warning that a total vehicle height of a vehicle may exceed a clearance height of a road being executed by a mobile application on an electronic communication device carried in the vehicle, the method comprising the steps of:

identifying the total vehicle height;

receiving GPS data indicative of a current location of the vehicle;

inputting a destination input of the vehicle;

retrieving, using the GPS data and the destination input, overpass height data for likely routes needed for the vehicle to reach the destination;

downloading the clearance height of all roads proximal to the vehicle;

comparing the total vehicle height to the overpass height data clearance heights using the overpass height data downloaded;

generating one or more possible routes that are deemed not to pose an elevational issue based on the step of comparing;

beginning navigation on one of the one or more possible routes;

determining whether the vehicle has deviated from the one of the one or more possible routes;

producing a deviated route;

downloading the clearance height of all roads proximal to the vehicle along the deviated route;

comparing the total vehicle height to overpass heights along the deviated route; and

generating a warning when the step of comparing identifies at least one clearance height that is less than 105% of the total vehicle height.

2 . A method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the step of identifying the vehicle height includes a step of entering the vehicle height into the electronic communication device manually.

3 . A method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the step of identifying the vehicle height by entering a vehicle identification number for the vehicle and a size of a tire mounted to the vehicle.

4 . A method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the step of identifying the vehicle height includes the step of scanning identifying information on the vehicle using the electronic communications device.

5 . A method as set forth in claim 4 including a step of retrieving a vehicle height from a database associated with the vehicle identification number.

6 . A method as set forth in claim 5 including a step of calculating a tire diameter based on the tire size.

7 . A method as set forth in claim 6 including a step of adding the tire diameter and the vehicle height to obtain the total vehicle height.