I saw a queen size mattress once. A couch another time. Some tools like a hammer someone left on the bed mounted tool box.

Now, stuff flying out of boats being towed on trailers.......I've seen large offshore fishing rods get snagged by trees and telephone wires and hanging in the air, life jackets, coolers, towels, large bench seat cushions, you name it.

I'm guessing you can't live a normal life without seeing or hitting stuff. I once hit the tailgate off a semi truck that had broken loose/rusted itself free. Tore up a jeep tire real good. I harvested the smashed remains of a hand truck off the interstate. It was a Magcoa but it did have inflatable tires that were perfect. I've never gotten around to installing them on my hand truck. But I keep telling myself I will some day.

And long ago, like 15 or so years, I needed to take out a hedge of overgrown evergreens. I spent Saturday cutting them and loading them in my pickup truck. Then I thought I secured them with motorcycle straps to the bed. Sunday morning I got up to haul them off to a gravel pit about 20 miles away. Everything seemed to be going fine. I didn't even make it halfway when I looked up and could see out my back window. That wasn't possible when I started. So I pulled a u-turn right in the middle of US50 and went back to look. Yeppers, there was my hedge, lying in the road. I thought about it for a few seconds and headed on home. It was Sunday and there was no traffic, 4 lane road. I figured it was more dangerous to try to reload them than to leave them. So away I went, just like everyone else.

quote:

Originally posted by sig226fan:
I think it was last year or so, I was going home on the Dallas North Tollway at rush hour. A work truck was probably 6 cars ahead of me traveling a decent clip. Traffic had just opened up on this stretch. All of the sudden cars started parting like the Red Sea and hitting the breaks. A generator had fallen off the back and skidded along the tollway. This of course was throwing sparks like no body's business. And I guess gas started leaking because it was either on its side or upside down. Then POOF! Flames shot everywhere. Glad I was close and could get around it, because it really caused a shit show for everyone behind me.

I use that tollway from time to time, and I'm amazed at the number of vehicles with poorly secured loads driving on it.

Of course, the biggest problem on the Dallas North Tollway is the professional athletes (particularly the Cowboys) and other rich people who live up in Plano, Frisco, and Prosper with their very expensive and fast sports cars zooming in and out of the traffic lanes racing each other in heavy traffic. How they haven't killed someone is a miracle.

I saw a little calf fall from the back of a trailer. Heartbreaking to see the little guy bouncing off the road at 60mph. He did survive.

A horse fell backwards off the back of a flat bed truck from the reservation. Not tethered properly...on a flat bed truck! The occupants of the truck were intermittently applying the brakes attempting to keep it from rearing up. It fell off the back of the truck onto the highway and broke a hind leg. I had to dispatch it.

I also saw several dozen large steel balls, the size of soft balls, come off the back of a semi truck/trailer. Apparently, they're used for copper mining and were poorly secured. A couple bounced over my car but missed. Imagine one of those at freeway speeds coming at you. Several vehicles behind me were not so lucky.

Going down the freeway in the fast lane on my motorcycle, a spare tire dropped out from under the bed of a pickup truck. Hit flat and bounced upright and started toward me. I decided to go right and it went left to the center divider.

Stopped at a traffic light, preparing to make a left turn, a contractor-type truck approaching from the other direction apparently realized only at the last minute the light was red, and slammed on his brakes. His entire load of steel pipe atop the rack atop his truck flew off the truck, cartwheeling, spinning and bouncing across the intersection. One piece went flying by me, end-over-end, missing my driver's side mirror by mere inches.

I was a Ham at the time, had been in conversation with somebody, had the mic keyed and was saying something, when this happened. I froze, then said "HOLY F**K!" as these pipes headed in my direction. Only after they missed me did I realize I still had the mic keyed

A logging truck lost its load at a stop light in Central Montana. One of the upright steel supports broke. The logs all rolled onto a classic pickup truck waiting the the right lane for the light to change. My friend, Roger, was pinned in the truck for hours and the logs were removed. He was busted up but lived.

A year later a logging truck took a sweeping corner a bit fast in the same town and dumped the pup. The logs rolled across the main drag and took out a big motel sign and most of the office. Nobody was hurt but the mess took a while to clean up.

A friend lost his brother when he rode his Harley into a a mattress that fell off a pickup at highway speed.

The most unique I have seen were large casting molds on the way to a foundry. They weighed a few tons each, were property of the US Govt, and were one offs for some battleship parts. Company that had them was improperly transporting them on a utility trailer behind an employee's personally owned vehicle.

The most harrowing I have seen was a new security door that flipped off the back of a contractor's truck. It punched through the windshield of the car behind him. Almost completely horizontal, clean penetration, and was stopped by the driver's headrest. He saw it coming and was able to lay over into the passenger seat fast enough for it to miss him.

I've seen an over-height dozer blade hit a bridge at speed, wheels/tires, furniture, tools, and anything else you can imagine falling off. I've even seen two entire trailers become disconnected while in tow.

We were driving south on I-5 returning home from the Tacoma WA area once, passing through a cut through a hill. We saw a tire, mounted on a wheel, bouncing UP the side of the cut. It must have come off of a trailer. Pretty funny actually, until it came to a stop and then started bouncing back down the hill. Ummm, uh-oh. It didn't hit anyone, but I think a few sphincters tightened up there for a minute.

Quite a while back now, my Dad's cousin in California was following a little too close behind a dump truck loaded with rocks. It hit a bump, one of the rocks came out and went through cousin's windshield. Killed her instantly.

5gallon bucket flopped out of the back of a work truck on I40 near Greensboro...I was in the fast lane and running 80....I just had to take it...destroyed Mrs. Mikes Nissan Altima's front end....cost me $900 to get it replaced.

When I was a cop I got a call one night for an object in the road...my rookie and I had just sat down to eat, and he said hey, let’s just finish eating and then go get that call....I told him no we couldn’t blow off a call, because you never know. Turned out to be a complete engine and transmission in the center of the lane in a curve-at night....must have beeen rebuilt and the guy forgot to tie it down.

50 years ago I was following behind a small sedan that was slowly turning left into my subdivision. The front seat passenger door opened and a lady fell out onto the road. Before I could stop the driver stopped his car, got out, put the lady back in the car, shut the passenger door and kept going. It was bizarre, almost like this was a normal occurrence.

Ladders. If you need a used step ladder, drive the stretch of I-64 between Hampton, Va and Norfolk, Va. On most days, you'll get a nice selection.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Micropterus,

I was traveling home from Kentucky after Thanksgiving one year; cruising up I-79 north of Charleston, West Virginia. My sons and I were all in the front seat of a pickup at highway speeds of around 70mph. A cut-log fell off another north-bound pickup and bounced straight over my truck...and I had no time to react. No damage, but if timing was a little off, one of my sons would have been killed. It still bothers me when I think about it 20-plus years later. God was watching over us that day.

I was a consultant and working in the San Francisco Bay area. My wife came with me on the trip. I had a meeting with a government agency in the East Bay area and my wife was going to travel with me that day. At the last minute, she decided to stay at the hotel and read by the pool.

I was driving on the freeway in a rental car. As I was going under an overpass, a rock about the size of a softball came through the passenger side of the windshield and landed in the passenger seat. My wife would have likely been killed.

We were driving on a two-lane highway following a pickup truck towing a long trailer with racks filled with canoes. I noticed the canoes moving a little and took my foot off of the gas. The canoes all came loose and were flipping through the air all around us. I somehow managed to miss all of them.

We were driving down the freeway and an SUV in front of us had two bicycles on the back. I noticed them moving a little. I said to my wife, "Remember the canoes?" The bicycles came off and were bouncing and flipping down the freeway. I somehow managed to miss them.

Full size basketball hoop with backboard and giant pole on 635 in Dallas

We had taken one of the dogs somewhere and he had to poop.
Being the good citizen I am, I picked it up and tossed the poop bag into the back of my truck since there were no nearby trashcans.

When we got home, the poop bag was no longer in the bed of the truck. It must have blown out on the ride home.
I hope it fell harmlessly to the ground rather than going splat on someones windshield.

I did feel bad about it and manage poop disposal in more responsible way.

Riding on I-96 one afternoon on the bike. Pickup truck ahead of me was carrying several sheets of drywall, unsecured flapping away. 96 there was three lanes, he was in the far right lane, I'm approaching in the center lane. I get into the left lane and accelerate, want to be nowhere near this shitshow.

Next day on the way home,same route, pieces of drywall on the shoulders just ahead of where I passed him.

Once saw a complete small block Chevy engine in the middle of Eight Mile Rod just east of I-275.

We were moving some cabinets about 5 miles from my uncle's house to ours.
We were in my dad's ~1998 GMC Sierra, cabinets were maybe 1ft higher than the cab, speed limit on that road is 50mph, IIRC.
We weren't going far & kept the speed low, so no need to strap the min, right?
I remember looking in the mirror (dad was driving) just in time to see them both lift & flip backward out of the bed, airborne about 4 ft above the ground & explode in a shower of MDF on the road.

In high school, I was leaving one morning and got lucky that I stopped short in the driveway.
A truck coming around the curve had his small open cargo trailer unhitch itself & it was not chained to the truck.
The tongue skipped along a few times, went across our driveway, about 3 feet in front of my car, dug into the ditch & cartwheel into the yard.

In college, was driving my grandfather's '89 Mercedes 560SEC, following behind an E39 BMW 5-series.
The car in front of the BMW braked heavily & swerved, BMW braked but couldn't swerve in time.
An Igloo ice chest had fallen out of a vehicle ahead & the BMW sent a shower of plastic & foam into the air.
I managed to avoid the debris, lucky since the windows & sunroof were open.

My experiences:
Hit a huge chunk of semi tire recap one dark night. 2K damage to my Nissan XTerra.
My personal attorney was killed on I-70 near Columbus when a semi truck brake drum came off a truck and went through his windshield.
On patrol, I was approaching an over pass to my 6 lane divided highway and several deer were standing on it. I was amazed to see two of them jump off the bridge and fall onto the highway below. Lots of skidding and crashing resulted. By the time I got down off the over pass and back to the bridge, everyone but the deer were gone.

Driving on I95 many years ago, I witnessed a pickup truck lose its aluminum camper cap. This was one of the taller than the cab types, with windows on the sides. The guy swerved suddenly (never did see what he was avoiding) and the drivers side of the cap reared up slightly. I guess the wind caught it just right, because that cap stood right up and flipped off into the next lane over, where it was promptly obliterated by a semi.
I got to drive through an explosion of aluminum, foam insulation, glass and cheap wood paneling. Ended up with a bunch.of it in my grille and radiator, and a gingham curtain snagged on my antenna.
Quite the sh!tshow, that was.