Cameron

I-95 south this morning. Some black roll of something - looked like a supersized roll of electricians tape - comes flying off of an overloaded, beat up pickup truck as it bounces over some bumps. Of course, it bounces / rolls right into and under the front of my car. I had a van to my left and didn't have have a chance to see if my right was clear. I went over it. I clipped it with my right front tire, hear some more banging and then hear a dragging sound.

I pull off to the side and look under the car. My cable tie job on my belly pan has come off so a small portion of the pan is hanging down a bit. I am most concerned about the tire, wheel, suspension and alignment.

I get back on looking for the next exit. Car is running stright as an arrow at 55 mph, no bounce, no pull, but I can hear the dragging again. I hope I am ok other than the belly pan. I take Sunrise blvd west. Driving under 45 mph, the belly pan is not dragging. I might be in the market for one of the aluminum ones after this.

They need to enforce this safety issue alot more. As an example, down here in South Florida a girl was impaled by a steel rod that fell off of a truck. She lived and recovered, but this kind of incident is completely avoidable with awareness and strict and strong enforecement with meaningful penalties such as criminal liability.

.....Cameron
'91 Euro GT

Randy V

Close call - coulda been a lot worse.

That reminds me of an incident that happened to me last year. I was on I-5 heading south at traffic flow speed - around 70. The road was not too congested, I had empty lanes to either side, and some space to the rear.

I'm coming up on this large van when out of nowhere comes this rectangular orange object heading straight for my windshield. At first blink it looked like one of those large metal road construction warning signs.

I cranked the wheel hard right and the object flew by the left side of the car, clearing the winshield and A-pillar by inches. The 928 then did a smoking sideways slide for 30 yards or so, until I was able to straighten it out. More luck than skill on that manuever!

As the object whizzed by my side window, I could see that it was an orange foam boogie board, presumably lost from the top of that van.

That little incident really got the adrenaline pumping!

Rez

Nice move Randy! I would have given you a big fat thumbs up for pulling that off.

Cameron, people, especially around where you, tend to use I-95 as a local road. The result, more stupid people driving peices of crap. Blame the feds, they are the ones that grant I-95 interchanges. Around here, there are 3 exits in about 20 miles in just the stretch of I-95 I live/work in, with at least one more, if not two on the way.

Perry 951

Unfortunately occurences like this are all too common. Here in Atlanta 3 people have been killed from things falling off trucks in the last month alone.

How do you regulate it?

Jim_H

In Oregon you get a BIG fine if things aren't properly tarped or tied down.

Driving back from the East Coast, must have been around midnight. Not much traffic so I was in the middle instead of the fast lane, doing around 90. Coming up on a truck and I start moving to the fast lane and there sits a recap, right in the middle of the lane. This one didn't shred like a lot of them do, it had to have been about 3/4 of the tire. I have often wondered what that would have done to my newly aquired GT. Or to a bike passing by.

PorKen

Last summer, I ran over something at a leisurely 70mph on I-84:



It was dark and I never saw what it was.

Nicole

When I was living in Germany, I never thought that colission insurance makes sense. As I was driving here I saw all this stuff on the freeway.

One day I was drifing doown 101 from SF Airport, and there was a complete wheel with brake drum rolling down the road, slowly going from the right towards the center divide. I was doing about 75mph, and the wheel was almost as fast. Eventually, it straightened its path out in a little grove between the fast lane and the guard rail, so I was able to pass it safely.

One night I was driving on the fast lane on 880. In front of me, middle lane, an SUV, and on the right lane, ahead of the SUV was a truck that had plastic lawn chairs loaded. Well, these started flying out and hitting the SUV in the middle lane. The dirve of the truck did not even seem to notice that his load was disappearing.

Another sad reason why the US needs a speed limit...

Rez

Reason 4,323 why Germany is better than America. Keep em coming Nicole.

SteveG

I was on I-80, Patterson, NJ, eastbound, left lane. Someone hits a short-handled shovel that had been laying in westbound left lane. It became airborne and sails past my wind shield and over the roof. I swerved, but like Randy, it was luck and it didn't touch me. It was waaay too close. Tarp laws need to be enforced.

Steve J.

Sheet of 3/4" plywood blew off a truck in front of me and sailed over my car. I watched in the rearview mirror as other motorists scrambled to dodge it.

Dan Bise

Ha, great stories all.

I recently took a rake in the front right 928 fender on the 605 south. I usually avoid the 605 due to all the truck traffic, but I needed to get to a meeting. A landscaping truck got in front of me in the carpool lane doing about 90 and moments later, the wind ejected a rake out the back of it. The rake helicoptered toward me and I nudged toward the K-rail as close as I dared only to get two gouges in my fender from the handle.

The CHP said I could report it, but they told me they would not act on the report. Too common an ocurrence. Randy V told me "that's why you have insurance." Well, after this, I went and lowered my massive deductable, so I'll be ready for the next one.

Less recently (and in other cars) a truck lobbed a giant square block of insulation at me, which stuck under the car and smoked on the catalytic converted until I could make it to an offramp. I also watched a coworker nail a piece of wood the size of a railroad tie in his 5-series Bimmer - blew out a tire, bent a rim, tore up the spoiler. He wasn't the only victim as this giant piece of wood went on to kill 4 more cars in the ensuing minutes.

The scariest thing though, was a gigantic steaming hunk of meat the size of a Volkswagen Beetle that I narrowly missed on the southbound I-5 ramp to the 710N. Coming upon this huge mound of blood, meat and hair - on a blind curve at night - well, it's still a bit disturbing to think about it. I suppose it was a cow that fell off of a truck? Yikes.

Dan
'83S

Jessa

Marin country has a scenic mix of dairy farms and many tall hills. As a result, we could use some "Watch for falling cows" signs. They'd look like a mix between the falling rock signs, and cow crossing signs.

It caused a nasty backup and some damage a car (not mine) a couple months back when a cow wandered off the side of a small cliff, falling onto the middle of Lucas Valley Road. The poor car was in bad shape, and the poor cow was worse. CHP had to put it down.

Gretch

I experienced having a mattress fall off a truck in front of me on a two lane highway. There was a car in the other lane and we were all moving pretty quickly. I had no choice but to hit it.......in my rear view mirror it looked like a train ran through a hen house. Feathers in some strange places, but no damage to the car. Was not my shark that I was driving at the time.....the guy behind me got it worse, cause it lifted up off the road after I hit it and he nailed it hard with the front of his car.......

perrys4

Just now on my way to get my daughter from school the SUV in front of me gets on brakes hard and crosses the double yellow line. I look ahead and no oncoming so I follow him over and there are two giant gardener tarps full of plant and grass trimmings. How the hell do you lose those and not feel or see it?????? Glad I didnt hit one of them Would have scratched the you know what out of my front end. Big rigs that arent properly maintained are a big problem also. Years ago I went to an accident scene where a piece of the braking system came off a truck and went through the windshield and killed the woman in the passenger seat.

JEC_31

99% of the time it's the laziness, inexperience, or just plain stupidity of the person driving the debris-ejecting trucks.

I once worked with an older gentleman who had previously served the US Army as a driver for a couple of decades. He learned the lesson about personally securing his load in Hawaii in the early 60s when he was handed the keys to a beat-up old tractor trailer rig loaded down with a 4x8s of plywood and ordered to take it up the mountain/volcano to the new build site. He said the poor old truck could barely pull all that wood at first, but it seemed to kind of warm up partway up the mountain and the closer he got to the site the faster he could go. It wasn't until he arrived did he realize that he had been shedding plywood sheets the whole trip! He said there was maybe half the original load left. He recuited some laughing soldiers and a pissed off foreman to go back and pick them up - but apparently the locals had been following him and had scooped up nearly all of the lost sheets. From then on, he told me, every load he drove - whether he was trucking supplies or chauffeuring officers - he made sure they were tied down!