This sounds like the old classic traditional cause, ignorance. Ignorance(mostly mine), is the reason I insure my boat.

I'll bet people have been hitting bridges like this regularly forever. But we rarely heard about it, before the internet and a dozen digital cameras always nearby. Would this guy have called the local newspaper to tell the story? I don't think so,...

Today if you screw up and hit a bridge(or whatever,...), it'll go virile in minutes(just ask the owner of the Tayana).