Some while ago someone posted a thread about the danger of riding to close to trucks,another thing to watch out for are vehicles carrying bicyles,out today saw a bike lying in the middle of the road on our version of an interstate its not the first time either,being hit by one of them at 70mph could really mess up your day.

 

we went on our yearly vacation to san antonio this summer. the wife had the kids in the car and i was on my bike. around 6 pm or so we decided to go back to the hotel. It had been raining for about a half an hr before we left 6 flags. thought it slowed down enough to ride back....wrong. got on I 10 and the skys opened up agian. on the way back to the hotel in this summertime san antonio down pour i go under an overpass and while wiping rain out of my eyes what do i see...a genarator that had just fallen of a pick up truck and was in a thousand peices. got through it ok but I about sh$t my pants.

 

I was ridin next to a buddy on the highway in No Fla and we were behind a flatbed truck with stake sides. Just as we moved left to pass the truck, a blue plastic 55 gallon barrel vibrated off the back of it. I watched in the rearview as the 18 wheeler that was next in line hit the barrel dead center.... That thing turned into a blue rocket! Wished I coulda had a video of that one! It shot off to the side and flew into a field so far as I could tell.... I had to drag my eyes back to the road ahead of me, but DAMN what a sight!!

 

Aluminum ladders have got to be one of the worst. People don't realize that they're aerodynamic. If not tied down they just fly out of the truck.

 

As a highway worker I've seen things hit by semi trucks get launched with deadly force. We use to have cones to guide the traffic past us and ocasionally a car or truck would hit one or two. Getting hit with one of those will defiantely knock the daylights out of you. Also the barrels that show a lane closure will kill you if you get into the path of the richochet.

Now I always check out the load of any vehicle that has a load. If it's sitting near the edge of the bed I'll ride past the vehicle the first chance I get. If you hit something that has fallen off a truck your day is likely to be done regardless of what you're driving or riding.

 

Coming out of Home Depot today a guy in front of me had a tall palm tree in the back of his mini truck that must have been about 15-16 feet tall.

Yep, he loaded it upright. Isaw that and told the wife, I'm getting away from this idiot cause that is going to fall real soon.

It did. He didn't get a half block down the street and it hit tree branches. Knocked it down onto his tail gate.

You have to be careful and aware of what everyone around you is doing AND hauling.

 

Actually out here we have a lot of mattresses and box springs that find there way onto the highway.

In a extreme case a co-worker of my wife was riding to work in the early a.m. hours and ran into a "washing machine" he didn't survive the impact.

Guess it just goes back to the axiom "When it's your time, it's your time." and "Keep you head on a swivel."

 

Watch out for those spare tires mounted under the car.
I have seen those fall off.
MikeM

 

A couple months ago the wife and I were riding on a 2 lane highway not far from our house. There was 1 car in front of us and a truck in front of them with a mattress in the back. Running at about 55mph we saw the mattress launch out of the truck and flew about 20ft in the air. We thought there was a bag of clothes flying out with it but it was a person. Apparently the mattress had flew out a couple miles back and the guy decided he would ride on top of it to keep it from flying out. Terrible idea....he was okay and had a pretty nasty cut to his head and lots of road rash. He's very lucky that the car or us on the bike didn't hit him. It would have been much worse (for both of us). Always secure anything in a vehicle not matter if you "don't have that far to go".

 

I had to dodge a big roll of insulation that I saw fall off a truck.