Damn, I was behind a landscaping truck about 10 years ago going north on the 470 loop in CO and in almost slow motion I watched a spade shovel catch the wind, flip up into the air about 20 feet and start coming down right at me. Switching lanes as quick as I could, I watched the thing touch down right where I would have been.
Situational awareness is a big deal.
No doubt! I've had several close calls like that. I was behind a landscaper on my motorcycle. Not the tidy, professional, type of landscape truck either. Typically I would have sped past but I hung back because who knows. Another hundred yards down the road, the wind caught an empty trash can - the big 55 gallon type. It started to swirl around in his bed and I thought "****, I should have passed him, if I was at least abreast the guy I would be safe". Instead, the can flipped over the cab, down his passenger side, then tumbled down the road toward me. So much for that thought. I didn't think it was that serious, they're not heavy right? I dodged it anyway, then the little compact car in the lane to my left hit it and high-centered on it! Would have been a bad day to hit it on a bike.
One night on the same bike I was riding through town around 30mph, in the dark, no helmet (not required in AZ), just some safety glasses for the wind. Something hit me square in the face and laid me flat on the seat. I was able to sit up and get to the shoulder without issue. No idea what it was, but the liquid and fur that was on my glasses told me either a bat or a palo verde beetle. I bought a helmet the next week.
Years later in Vegas, I'm on the highway and there's a styrofoam box bouncing along the road in the direction of travel, but between lanes. I literally said to my wife "at least it's styrofoam" as I tried to dodge it while keeping my lane in steady traffic. It hit my right mirror and obliterated it - nothing left at all of the entire housing. Whatever was inside that styrofoam case must've weighed a good bit! I'm just glad it didn't hit the windsheild.
Another few years later, in the same car, we're on I90 in the middle of nowhere. A flock of small birds, those little gray/brown ones that exist everywhere, flew up off of a hay field that was recently cut and crossed the highway. One swooped down over the lane and slammed into the front of my driver's side mirror. Hit hard enough it folded and blew the glass out of it. I swear the mirrors on that car are cursed.
In highschool, a friend and I were on one our first road trips out of town. The freeway is steep, downhill, and windy. The overhead sun lit up some dust up ahead of us, but no telling how far away or if it was dirt bikes up on the mountain. My buddy was driving and I told him to slow down, which he didn't like. Several more times I told him to slow, there's something going on up there. It wasn't heavy traffic, but enough to limit your escape routes. He finally started to slow, and as we get to just under about 50mph we come around the corner and see a hay truck had tipped. What road wasn't blocked by the trailer was blocked by bales. It became a 35mph slalom and we barely made it through. Not all the cars behind us did though. First time using a call box to get CHP out there, no cell phones yet.
I still vividly remember as a kid when I was being taught to drive, there was a cardboard box out in the road one time. Being a kid, I wanted to hit it, because why not? My uncle was the one in the passenger seat and must've read my mind. He tells me: "go wide around that damn box and don't you dare hit it, or I'll hit you harder". I obliged before asking why, but the car behind us decided to flatten it and found out the hard way there were two cinder blocks in it. Apparenly it was a yard-sale sign, and the winds our town was notorious for had blown the box over into the roadway despite the ballast inside. That was probably the best driving lesson ever - I've always avoided debris on the highways whenever possible since then.
Which reminds me of when we'd see the news report the freeway closed due to tumble weeds. Which I thought was dumb - they're so fragile you could drive right through them, right? So one day I'm headed out of Bakersfield and the wind is picking up. A mass of tumbleweeds is coming across the highway, building up on the center divider. Like some sort of desert version of a snow drift. I head past the several rigs stopped on the shoulder thinking I'm brilliant and head right into the sea of brown. Almost immediately those things pile up under the front of the car until the front wheels can no longer steer and suddenly I'm on the shoulder too, dead stopped. Not even realizing that I had done the dumbest thing imaginable because exhaust could have lit those suckers on fire and it would have become a whole different kind of mess...
That's not even getting into all the car vs wildlife near misses either... LOL. Head on a swivel, and be cognizant of the other risks present.
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