Road Hazards
Are you ever driving behind someone who has something precariously hanging from their vehicle and you think to yourself, “Man, that would suck if that fell off and hit my car?”
Well, I’ve had two instances in the past month that have confirmed that 1. people aren’t always that smart when attaching things to their vehicles and 2. you should always double-check all your doors before heading out.
One happened about three weeks ago when my friend and I were following a pickup that had fishing poles in the bed. Hanging from one of the poles was a gar. Now why you would be taking a gar home, I’m not sure as I don’t think you eat them, and they’re rather ugly to mount on the wall. Nonetheless, the gar was hanging on the outside of the bed. My friend, who was driving, decided to slow down and follow at a safer distance in case Mr. Fish decided to cut free. Two miles later, he did.
This morning, I was pulling onto 75 when I heard a loud, clanging noise. I look to my right, and a dolley was bouncing down the road behind a delivery truck whose doors were swung wide open. The car behind the truck slammed on its brakes and honked. Luckily, the truck driver realized what was happening and stopped.
So my question is: Have you had anything strange come at you on the road?
A cow.
A ladder from the truck in front of me tore my radiator up.
I once took out two grackles at once when they flew right into my car.
Oh an SUV swerved to “avoid” a blown tire (it had enough clearance to roll over the piece of tire) and instead kicked it up flying straight at me as I went down the tollway. My options were to brake and hope it wouldn’t kill me or hit the car next to me. I braked and the grille took the hit after a bounce.
a “gator”, one of those huge pieces of rubber from an 18 wheeler’s blown tire.
an aluminum trash can.
a pile of bricks.
all on the same stretch of road: HWY 67.
In 1980, my mom and I were on a two-lane road in East Texas. A truck, going the opposite way we were, was towing a car that had been badly damaged. As we were approaching, the left rear wheel and axle of the towed car came loose and into our lane. The DPS trooper said my mom must have hit the brake at just the right time to prevent it from coming over the hood and through the windshield. The 2 things I remember: the profanity coming out of my mom’s mouth and the car phone of the person who stopped to help us.
Last night at 7:30 on eastbound 635’s exit to get onto 75, there were 2 guys walking along the shoulder, one of whom had a large parrot on his shoulder. About 50 yards ahead was a pickup with a giant birdcage in the back. I can only imagine what happened 2 minutes before I got there…