Most modern bridges you drive over are designed the probabilistic way that is suggested in the article. Bridge design followed vertical construction as material

Most modern bridges you drive over are designed the probabilistic way that is suggested in the article. Bridge design followed vertical construction as material science and manufacturing got better for steel and concrete. The probabilistic approaches haven’t been adopted much in engineering fields that deal with too many unknowns. I’m actually incredibly surprised that there was no mention of the technical terms for these approaches: Allowable Stress Design, Load and Resistance Factor Design, and Yeah That Looks Right Design. LRFD is highly probability and materials testing based. ASD is a hybrid approach of old factors of safety and some probabilistic theory. YTLRD is based on the long and storied history of guys who have been doing it this way since before you were born, no matter when that was.