And sometimes it's not even active destruction, just neglect. Public use amenities are subject to large amounts of wear-and-tear. Sometimes a thing just breaks, from someone being careless or not knowing how to operate it. You have to have the wherewithal for follow-through with upkeep.
About a half a dozen who were nearby when the bridge collapsed, and, of those, only two actually missed seeing it happen. *Everyone* heard it, though: a great roaring waterfall of concrete and steel that echoed across the derelict plains for minutes and miles. The local folk would have told you that it was the river flooding a month earlier what had done it; that, and the heat of that summer havign roasted the old tarmac to pieces. But that wouldn't have been the truth; not entirely. Their hindsight failed to reach past a few preceding seasons, the road's slow degradation after years of use and somewhat fewer years of maintenance as far beyond the horizon as the sea. The columns that supported the span, plunging deep into the river below it, had had great, sweeping cracks for as long as the youth who periodically swam out to tag them could remember. The chain link fence that ran along the bridge's sides had rusted through to a twisted ragged heap even before then.
The river the bridge had spanned was the _____, and the bridge itself - part of an interstate, from back when there had been states - had linked the northern and southern portions of Jefferson County (which still existed). Thankfully, no one was on it when it finally gave up the ghost. (For a few days, the Hughes of just south of the old rails were worried for their son, Kurt, who had failed to return home that evening; but he eventually turned up a week later, having spent the time with his girlfriend.)
The loss of the ancient connector meant 50 miles extra travel for anyone who wanted to get from Dodge to Shelley, already a 70-mile trek. With gas so hard to come by, that was no small thing. Rebuilding it would have been ideal, but the fact was that there was no one around who could possibly manage such a project; most of that expertise was locked up in Atlanta, New York-Jersey, Charlotte, and St. Louis, and not one of the territories so mentioned was on good terms with small, flyover, Sep-sympathizing Jefferson County. Besides that, there were scant funds for construction equipment and materials anyway; the curse of Jefferson's self-sufficiency knocking unwelcome on the doors of Jeffersonian hearts more often than any stranger. The bridge would not be rebuilt. So, after the commotion of the actual collapse had died down, and the locals had ceased stopping by to gaze at the ruins and shake their heads and scowl, the structure, half-submerged stone monolith, lay placid and abandoned.
None of this is really important, except for the part about the 50-mile detour. That... that is actually very important.
---
The Biker learned of the bridge's collapse well before reaching Jefferson County. For all that had broken down from neglect or sabotage or accident in this land over the years, it seemed that the grapevine was as resilient as ever. The proprietor of a public house - the one he'd stopped in at when it came time to transfer some of his precious fuel from an emergency tank to the hot rod proper - was the bearer of the bad news. He'd thanked her, pulled out the Handspring loaded with a bootleg map app, and started searching for a new route. This one wouldn't do, it was likely to be more of a still-glowing crater than a road; and that one, that one ran right through hardcore Sep territory. And this one... No, he'd definitely run out of fuel. ...Maybe the second, again? If he could be quick, go at the right time of day... Too risky, his common sense told him. Nonsense, said the impulsive part that had gotten him out of (and, admittedly, into) many a hairy situation. T could outrun any trouble he might find. And he wouldn't find any, because he would be very, very careful. 'You don't got a choice, bub. Gas isn't cheap OR plentiful.'
"Shit."
He hit the Handspring's power button and gingerly slid it back into his leather side saddle, and delayed his oncoming foolishness by taking the moment to glance around like he was looking for someone who was looking for him. Other than the pub, a converted vinyl-sided colonial, there was nothing but the coiled curves of cracked suburban roads and sidewalks; the mounded plots that lay along them, where the foundations of dozens of long-dismantled domiciles had once stood; and each building's replacements, bunches of grass and scrub, waving occasionally in the odd and rare breeze, which were staking out their own homesteads.
In Europe it's frequently teenagers (even those whom parents provide good lives), football fans, drunk people, etc.
Some people are antisocial and destroy public stuff just for laughs, not because they feel resentment towards society.