This is the type of obstacle that sometimes makes me wonder why I bought a nice car. As one can see by the terracotta interior of the dash the photo was taken from the passenger seat of my Porsche . It's not like thse types of things are rare in this region. Is it just South Florida .. or is this everywhere ? If so does anyone else feel uneasy when driving his 997 behind this ?

 

I suspect it is everywhere and there are always numerous and various road hazards - maybe this is one or not - hard to say from the photo. I have found that pulling over for a even a minute and waiting can dramatically change the scene if it is too bothersome. I don't think most people see the road system as a place to safely parade around expensive cars...and even though I do it often and have for years, I agree with them; the point would be utility over vanity.

 

Yep, it’s the same in So. Cal. We have plenty of knuckle-heads with pickup trucks haulin’ all sorts of junk. I’ve seen old beater trucks with mattresses stacked 15 feet high heading for the boarder. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.

A couple of years ago a contractor truck lost a 12 foot ladder right in front of me. I could have caused a 10 car pileup, but decided instead to hit the ladder straight on and over it. Fortunately I was driving my older BMW at the time and didn’t sustain any real damage. Not sure the Porsche would have fared as well.

 

Oh yes, Larry. I see that all the time on LA freeways, though I drive them less than I did once upon a time.

Uneasy... well, yes and no. I've got about something north of 1.2 million miles now, and in that time I've only had large objects fall off trucks about half a dozen times close enough to matter. Once it was a dog, which occasioned the most violent evasive maneuver, and since then I've gotten well clear of any vehicle with an animal aboard so Cindy can relax. I've seen stock get quite upset, but never make it out of the trailer onto the road surface. A horse or steer could ruin your whole decade.

Mostly it's been stuff somebody didn't tie down properly. (Well, so was the dog, but I mean inanimate stuff.) Large boxes full of light material that seem heavy when loading are like feathers in the breeze from a sixty-knot rate of progress on I-14. Ladders twice, as Bliss mentioned. Long, but they only take one or two bounces and the only serious risk is taking it end on through the windshield. Going over it flat is just money. Insurance paperwork actually. Once, a truck tire piled on top of other treasures. That was probably the scariest because you can't be sure which way a tire is going on the next bounce. The boxes were a little erratic because of the corners, but a tire... Sheeez.

Now as to the uneasy part. It's a lot harder to dodge when you're driving a motor home, so if we're talking about objects big enough to kill or wound a passenger or the driver, big enough that a motorhome might not protect you either, I guess I'd rather be in the sports car so I have a better chance of avoiding collision completely. On the other hand, I've actually been hit by flying objects twice, and it wrenches the heart worse when you're driving a special vehicle. Since the little objects outnumber the big ones by hundreds to one, I'd agree with you. Stay way from my Porsche, damn it!

I either find a way to pass quickly or turn off and take another route.

If by uneasy, you meant do I ever worry about the load shifting or falling off? Hell yes. Every time. From the look of the flapping lines, nobody hauling those loads took a merit badge in knots as a Boy Scout. But I do not exclude loads professionally strapped and chained. I've never been right behind, but I've come on the scene shortly after... can't remember how many in 52 years, but at least three major load accidents.

In the mountain pass between us and Los Angeles, a hay truck had his load slide off downwind in a gust (I assumed) and it blocked a freeway for an hour or so of busy traffic. Took the trailer over with it of course, but the scary bit was picturing those bales of hay when they went bouncing across all four lanes and both shoulders. It's no worse than going off course at a race track in the old days, but no better either. You can imagine what it does to your body work to hit a 120 lb bale of alfalfa going 70 mph. We stay at least one lane clear of hay trucks since that occasion.

At the freeway on-ramp I take every day, the vertical clearance is 14'8" and some trucker didn't notice the warning signs. He was hauling some large piece of equipment out to NASA or the Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base and the trailer and load combined to reach 15'2". Wish I'd seen that impact, but from a distance thank you. It broke the chains holding the load to the trailer and the load slid off the back of the trailer. Well, hell, it had to. Essentially, the load stopped in a foot or so while moving at 60 mph. The amount of kinetic energy that bridge absorbed boggles the mind for a peacetime event. They closed the overpass while they rebuilt it, and the freeway underneath it was closed as well by the highway patrol until a civil engineering team surveyed the overpass and made enough reinforcements to be confident it wouldn't drop on the traffic in some minor temblor. Since that time, I try earnestly to stay out from behind tall loads approaching an underpass.

The final one I remember off hand was a flatbed hauling those enormous sections of water pipe used for major water systems. You know: concrete cylinders eight feet in diameter, arrayed three to a trailer, and usually a double trailer. Some trucker stopped for the night at Four Corners (our local one in the desert where highways meet, not the big one where four states meet). He failed to check his load chains before setting out the next morning. Or so concluded the coroner's jury. Got onto highway 58 westbound and the load shifted at speed going around a bend. It's a two-lane undivided road at that point. His cylinders fell in front of the following traffic and on top of the oncoming traffic. Half a dozen cars directly involved and I have no idea how many drivers bailed out and put their car into the desert to escape a major collision. Several fatalities. Driver got hard time for that one.

Never found a useful change in my own driving patterns in response to that one. The load type is easy to recognize: anything round or otherwise inherently unstable so it constantly puts a shifting load on the tiedowns. About one flatbed load in ten maybe. Just stay alert and let your passenger cringe until you get past. Pulling off for a quick rest stop won't help on the two-lane highways where you encounter such things because they space those loads either by permit restriction or by persuasion of the highway patrol. If you get off and get back on, you've got an excellent chance of being right behind the next similar load following ten miles behind.

Yes. I worry about little pick-ups badly loaded and big trucks badly operated and even rocks falling off mountains. (Yes. That happened once too.) Like flying a light aircraft, I try to always have in mind a getaway. A reasonably flat place to land the airplane or a reasonably survivable place to stuff the car if all other options fail.

Don't think there's any other way to handle such risks. All part of driving. But I still cringe every time I have to ride behind some amateur hauling furniture. Seems like somebody always tucks in a small stool or an end table at the last minute after the load is tied down.

Gary

 

Well, I snapped this pic the other day in Dallas. At least this cargo looks more secured.

 

I'm going to enjoy the sight of that gorgeous teracotta color interior and ignore the rest in that picture. Life's too short to worry and if not for that refrigerator, i would have not gotten this interior sighting ;-)

 

I almost flipped my F150 over last year when a mason lost about 5 cinder blocks off the back of his truck on the expressway 30 feet in front of me. The right rear tire caught one during the evasive, blew out tire, destroyed the rim, and 1 pair of underwear... No bueno!

 

I had a railroad pick fall of a pickup truck right in front of me last year, we were doing about 70mph on a highway.

It is very hard to predict how a pick will bounce, it made for some very interesting evasive maneuvers. I can just imagine the damage it would have made had it hit me.

I had the shakes for 10 mins afterward. Then I was jut too angry to think.

I guess I can call it "applied DE 101"...

T.

 

Hey!!.. that's my refrigerator!!!.. bring it back!!!

 

Downshift and GO!
If a cop stops you, provide the excuse - no big deal.

Glass is half empty or half full?

Us it as an excuse to wind it out!

 

Saw this on the news this morning, it can happen when you least expect it... (sorry if repost)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCcYxTkx_fA

 

Just amazes me that police don't stop these drivers often with dangerous cargo. Guess it is easier to stop someone for speeding, and safer to be behind that vehicle.

 

I have a picture of that same car in NYC.

 

Sadly .. I think the problem is so large (maybe its the warm climate) where pickup trucks look like an open garbage can . Everything from people moving their things to gardeners with landscape flying all over.
If they got a ticket . it's almost like they don't care . I even wonder if they lost their license (which they won't) if they would still drive .

Even when they have the item fastened too many drive awful . Three years ago I had a truck carrying a large boat speed past me on the highway and the boat was fastened but the hitch blew a tire . It was like a dog wagging its tail and luckily no one hit it (including me).

A few mentioned So cal . I've been there many times . I also grew up in New York . The drivers aren't perfect anywhere but i have never seen anything like the drivers in South Florida .

It does leave me thinking twice about my next car. Part of me wouild like to replace my M3 one day with a Panamera Turbo but it makes no sense to use an expensive car daily here .

 

This is today's "photo of the day" . By the way it was one of four that I counted in the 20 minute drive I took to get groceries . I happened to have just washed the car too. I also kept my distance so the picture isn't that great because I really thought all this junk was going to topple.