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A very close call

Basil

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Sunday Mary and I were heading to a memorial service for a friend of our son who had died. We had just gotten onto I-40 west bound and I was following a pickup truck that had a bunch of stuff in the back, incuding an aluminum painter's ladder. Thankfully, I have developed a habit of never tailgating, for if I had been closer I probably would not be sitting here typing this.

All of the sudden, the ladder came out of the truck and was headed straight for us- bouncing on the highway! I immedialtly started breaking and, thankfully, had enough shoulder to get over and avoide being hit.

I stopped and ran back to where the ladder was in the middle of the right lane and had to wave off several semis and cars so they would avoid the ladder. The driver of the truck stopped further up and backed up to where the ladder was, which I was attempting to get ouot of the road. The idiot had the ladder tied down with bungie cord!


Took a while for my adrenaline to return to something approaching normal.
 
D

Deleted member 8987

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Coming back from an auto swap meet with my neighbor many years ago, got onto the 2 lane highway behind a small pikup with a small camper shell upside down in the bed.

I was shotgun, looked and told my neighbor to back way off. He asked why, so I said there is NOTHING holding that shell down.

Off he backs, and the shell lifts out of the bed (at 60 MPH), rotates, and dumps right on the road in front of us.

Fortunately we were far enough back to avoid, and it slid on it's top, right off the side of the road.

Mufflers? Shocks? Had them come out from under vehicles in front of me that should never have been within 100 feet of pavement.
 

Gliderman8

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I once saw an outboard motorboat fly out of the bed of a pickup. It landed in the median and was smashed to pieces. I don't know what the idiot was thinking; the airflow under the hull just "lifted" it into the air.
Glad you or you wife were not hurt
 
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Basil

Basil

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Glad you're ok, Basil. We don't want to have a memorial service for you.

That makes two of us! I had basically the same thing happen a few years back when I was driving back from Huntsville, AL. I was following a van on the highway that goes through Memphis when a laddar on the top of the van came loose. Again, I was lucky I wasn't closer or it would have been disaster.
 

TRopic6

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Wow! Brave action in quickly removing the ladder from the Interstate in the face of semi traffic. I know you used caution and certainly prevented an accident...or worse.
 

waltesefalcon

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I'm happy that you aren't a tailgater Bas!
 

pdplot

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Once every year or so, someone gets killed on I-95 by something blowing off a truck. I narrowly avoided a piece of sheetrock some years ago.
 

YakkoWarner

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I've had a couple close calls with things flying off trucks. As a kid going to visit relatives I was in the passenger seat of a big 1970's chevy when a brake drum fell off one of the junk cars on a truck we were passing. Fortunately at that time my father's reflexes were dead on accurate - he dodged just enough that it hit the side of the passenger door instead of coming right through the windshield.

Driving in Dallas I had a some kind of small flat dolly or castor pallet fly out of a pickup that was in front of me - I was well back from the truck but that thing caught some serious lift and landed right in front of where I would have been had I not moved over.

Had to do the slalom through boxes sliding down one of the major highways going into Austin when they fell off of a trailer.

Not falling from a truck, but dodging large birds (looked like ostriches) on my way to work - also watching the local police trying to round up several loose cattle on the road in the same area at a different time.

Almost hit a horse wandering down my neighborhood street one night - fortunately it was white/grey. Called that one in to the local sheriff's office so they could get it taken care of before it was injured.
 

HealeyRick

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Coming back from an auto swap meet with my neighbor many years ago, got onto the 2 lane highway behind a small pikup with a small camper shell upside down in the bed.

I was shotgun, looked and told my neighbor to back way off. He asked why, so I said there is NOTHING holding that shell down.

Off he backs, and the shell lifts out of the bed (at 60 MPH), rotates, and dumps right on the road in front of us.

Fortunately we were far enough back to avoid, and it slid on it's top, right off the side of the road.

Mufflers? Shocks? Had them come out from under vehicles in front of me that should never have been within 100 feet of pavement.

Had something similar going across the Tappan Zee bridge at about 60 mph. Camper shell lifted off the back of a pickup in front of me. No place to go on a bridge but was able to drive around it as it slid across the lanes. Scary.
 
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