Rant - Highway trash

That sucks, another scary thing on the interstate is tractor trailer tires that came apart and small pieces lay in the road. Those pieces are heavy with their steel cords etc. I had a car in front of me one time hit a piece. Flew up in the air and put a gouge in my painted front bumper a while back. I swear, I love the interstates but when in the wrong place at the wrong time...
 
A puncture like that could have been fatal to a motorcyclist.

The last M/C tire puncture I had was from a disintegrating Semi tire. I saw it come apart like a bomb and scatter tire casing shrapnel across the highway. One chunk with it's steel wires got my nearly new rear tire on the bike I was riding.

One Dunlop Q5S dead before it's time. But it least it didn't cause me to crash before it went flat.
 
The last M/C tire puncture I had was from a disintegrating Semi tire.
I have see 5 semi tire explosions/disintegrations in my decades of driving. I was close enough to all of them to get some tire pieces on the windshield or grill. A couple of them I saw small pieces of rubber start flying off the tire along with a bit of smoke, so I backed off and avoided the large chunks.

Never camp beside trucks and never follow them closely.
 
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Sitting at a Mavis in S Greenville SC because while on I85 I hit a ratchet strap which punctured a sidewall. Took me 45 mins to limp the 5 miles to the shop. Was supposed to be home an hour ago. So aggravating! :rolleyes::rolleyes:
I had been just N of Greenville on I85 recently and witnessed rigid foam insulation like 4'x8' come off a truck and just floating around in heavy traffic.
Pretty unsafe for different reasons.
 
I ran over part of a landscaping rake that was in my lane on the highway when I took Mom's Mercury for a run. There was someone to my right and the "shoulder" on the left side was maybe 6" of pavement and then it dropped into a ditch. Cost me a new gas tank, a follow-up for problems filling the car after that repair, and a return visit about 6 months after that to replace the fuel pump assembly because the float stopped working. Ford, in its infinite wisdom, triggers the CEL in case you don't notice that the needle is on "E" despite having a full tank of gas. Of course the last item happened as the vehicle was due for emissions testing. But wait, there's more! After the fuel pump fix, I had to take the car back one last time because if I filled the tank past 1/2 full, gas started running out. The opening for the pump is about halfway up the side of the tank and either they forgot to install or messed up the gasket/seal when putting the pump back in.

The Illinois State Police couldn't be bothered to send anyone out for me to make a report that evening. The local 911 operator told me that since I was on the state highway, they couldn't send anyone out and the number they gave me for the ISP didn't have anyone answering that night.

I had to call someone out the next day to take a report, and it turns out that there was another driver who showed up to also file a report. She was on the same road and the truck in front of her lost a shovel and damaged her windshield.
 
It’s disgusting everywhere except maybe Utah. Our new property borders a two lane highway. I pick up trash at least once a month and it looks like I never have each time.
 
During cv19 the I95 run from Maryland to FL was a fiasco especially from Richmond to Florida..

Waze is your friend and now Google gets info from Waze. Going through SC i got a notice of a bald eagle on the shoulder in 1 mile....sure enough.

Many notices of tire recaps in the road. Very accurate too
 
Roadside trash quantity is my quality of life indicator. Clearly road debris can pop up anywhere. But when allowed to accumulate, the local area is not being managed. So, roadside trash quantity is highly correlated with risk of life, limb, chaos and crime.

Growing up in NYC in the 1960 and 70's, the roadside debris accumulated to the point where it took actual heavy equipment to scoop it all up. People living in filth don't care one bit about the community or anybody.
 
That sucks, another scary thing on the interstate is tractor trailer tires that came apart and small pieces lay in the road. Those pieces are heavy with their steel cords etc. I had a car in front of me one time hit a piece. Flew up in the air and put a gouge in my painted front bumper a while back. I swear, I love the interstates but when in the wrong place at the wrong time...
I had one explode next to me about 18 months ago and it put a hole in my bumper

1000000508.webp
 
In a rental car, I hit a piece of debris near St. Augustine FL in the pre-dawn darkness, and it shredded two tires. I felt a little bad because the car had less than 3000 miles on it and I'd ruined two tires. Annoying because I had to wait four hours for them to come pick up my car on a flatbed, haul it up to the Jacksonville airport, and then bring me a replacement. Especially annoying because the replacement car was a bit of a downgrade and very high in mileage. At least they never charged me a dime for all their troubles.
 
Something hit the side of my car and tore plastic trim. Cost me $1,000 to find used parts, get them painted and installed.
 
Road debris and roadside trash has increased over the last few years …
There is no doubt there, but truck “gators” are older news often from recaps …
 
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