I Saw something sad

I saw something sad on the way going east on rt 78,a major highway in PA. Going east,ahead of me is a major access ramp coming from rt 100 , In front of me on the highway I see shiny things bouncing off the highway,I didnt know what it was till I Glanced to the right.A utility body truck was pulling to the side. The door was open right behind the drivers side .A red box was partilly hanging out,,all the drawers were rolled open. When the guy came down this ramp to get on the highway,,wrenches and such flinged all over the highway, I have no idea what happened,there was no way for me to get over,,it is a very very busy area.I ran over stuff,luckily didnt get a flat. Now I have 65 or so miles to ride,I started to get a sick feeling just thinking of this poor guy.Its hard enough trying to make a living without something like that happening.I dont think there is anyway he could pick them up,it was in a crazy busy area with the two highways coming together.

I was once behind a truck when a pallet of 2X4's on the truck broke open. The guy scattered 2X4's for 10 miles before someone got him stopped.

He either didn't have a CB, or had it turned off, 'cause people were yelling on the CB. Also don't know why he was oblivious to all the commotion behind him, cars dodging 2X4's, etc.

More scary than sad, but we were traveling from Minneapolis/St. Paul north on I94 one foggy night and a truck had lost it"s load over about 30 miles. It was some kind of pipe with flanges so you if you hit one your tires wouldn"t survive. Cars were driving over the pipe in the fog and ripping out tires, etc. It was a white nuckler for a while in the fog driving slow, trying to see the grey pipe on the highway and swerve around them.

Now you have to decide if your tools are worth your life.

Several years ago I was just turning into the parking lot entrance at a hardware store when a beat-up old pickup with two guys in it came screeching out of the lot entrance as if they had robbed the place. I heard a clattering and looked to see the street full of tools as the truck disappeared up a hill. I dashed out onto the four-lane street and dodged traffic as I scooped up all the tools. There were regular sockets, deep sockets, screwdrivers, a couple of wrenches, etc., including some decent name brands. Having no idea who the crazy truck belonged to, I gave the hardware store my phone number in case anyone came in looking for the tools. I never heard from anyone and still have the free tools that were worth probably $80 to $100. Another time we were having the first slippery snowfall of the season. I was following a pickup away from Menards and onto a four-lane entrance ramp. The driver was having a great time screwing around on the slick ramp, intentionally fishtailing back and forth. Out from the pickup box flew several pieces of vinyl siding trim. The truck continue out onto the four lane. I managed to secure the siding pieces in my Chevette and called Menards when I got home to tell them I had the trim if anyone should come back looking for it. Menards, of course, wanted me to bring the pieces back to the service desk (so they could go back into inventory, I'm sure). I watched the classified lost-and-found ads for a couple of weeks but saw no notice of lost siding stuff. I then told Menards I had pieces of brand-new trim I had no use for and asked if I could bring it in for store credit. I got about $60 for it. I don't know if I should feel guilty in such situations, but what else could I do?

A friend was on his Honda about dusk, saw some sparks in the lane ahead of him. Then he hit something with the bike, almost crashed, but got it to the shoulder. Had a hole in the engine case you could put your fist thru; a radial arm saw had fallen out of the truck and that's what he smashed into.

Supposed to be a $1,000 fine for losing any cargo off a truck in AZ. The illegals don't care so they don't tie stuff down. One morning a big box of nails fell off and scattered nails all over the freeway. I had to drive through them, but never got a flat but lots of other cars had flats. The illegals just drove down the freeway; if they stopped they would have been deported, so they don't stop.

I use to live in an area that had a lot of oil wells. One day in my travels I picked up a 36 inch aluminum pipe wrench and 2 more 24 inchers. Another time my dad picked up a 48 inch aluminum pipe wrench. The sad part is the driver probably did not even care that he lost it

That reminds me of the story the guys I used to work with tell. One of their buddy's was in town in his pickup cruising and showing off. He nailed it to do a burn out and his toll box flew out and all his tools went flying all over ! They had a good laugh over it ! Was not busy so he got them picked up before the cops showed up.

I remember this incident a few years back. The crew finally admitted they left it laying on the back of the truck.

Best I remember it was eventually found intact.
lost canister

Definitely know that sick feeling. Back in 1966 I was driving in the fast lane of the freeway when all of a sudden it felt as if I'd driven over a large rock on the road. I looked in my rear-view mirror to see my antique wooden Machinists Tool Box disintegrating and scattering over $1000. worth of tools on the freeway (Snap-On, Proto, Williams, etc.) . I'd had my toolbox on the floor behind the drivers seat in my 1957 Ford Ranchero and unbeknownst to me the floorboard was almost entirely rusted out under the carpeting, and that was when it decided to let loose. GRRRRR!

Doc :>(

20 years back a buddy borrowed his brothers truck to load 10 railroad ties for a new wall. We were sitting at stop light and when it turned green he hit the gas and promptly put the load in the middle of the intersection as we were making a left turn. We had lost it all from the left turn lane into the middle of the road on a 4 lane. New bed was too slippery.

Had a tanker truck leave the rendering plant once and didn't have his valve secure, he dumped about 5,000 pounds of choice white grease all over the road, wasn't much to pick up. After about an hour we'd bought up every bag of oil-dri in 40 miles. After that we kept a full pallet of oil dry in the chemical storage area ready to go just in case

A few years ago I and my family were going from SE AZ to Carlsbad NM where I was working. Pretty lonely stretch of road from El Paso into NM. About 15 miles from our destination there was shiny stuff all over the road and off to the side. Someone had lost a 5 drawer tool box. Since there was no traffic, I and my 4 kids were all over picking up tools. We picked up A LOT of tools. I put an AD in the local paper saying that if they could identify the tool box they could have them back. Never got a call from anybody. I still have them.

happen to me several times; top lid flipped up once because of wind & sucked some manuals out. One particular drop-down door will do it every time I forget to double check it. Luckily most of the stuff is too heavy to easily fall out. Haven't lost anything but the manuals.

Years ago as I was leaving work at the first stoplight there was a big metal lathe sitting in the road on a piece of plywood with two guys standing there looking at it.Apparently they had
the lathe in the back of the pickup and when they started off the plywood slipped and sat everything down in the road real heavy lathe guess they got a wrecker or rollback to load them back up.

I omce scooted out from under several sheets of aluminum siding leaving a local mobile home plant. As I shifted to second gear the cold blooded chevy pickup coughed and then jerked and left the sheets hanging in the air for a second. Highly embarrassing loading back up while my buddies stood around whooping and hollering. TDF

One Amish guy wanted me to get a stove his wife loaned out. When we got there loaded it and because I didn't have the tail gate on I started to tie it down. Amish guy says don't bother it isn't going anywhere . Yep going up a hill slid of smacked into concrete we loaded what was left tied that on. When we got to his place for some reason he wanted to store it in a remote location from the house I really wanted to find out what he said to the wife.

(quoted from post at 21:50:06 07/29/16) 20 years back a buddy borrowed his brothers truck to load 10 railroad ties for a new wall. We were sitting at stop light and when it turned green he hit the gas and promptly put the load in the middle of the intersection as we were making a left turn. We had lost it all from the left turn lane into the middle of the road on a 4 lane. New bed was too slippery.

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Yup, had same thing happen quite a while back when I was putting a hardwood floor in my kitchen. Loaded the bundles of 3/4" oak into the bed of my Ranger pickup with a liner, tailgate down. Turned onto the main hiway and almost all the bundles slid out and broke up. Stopped and picked them up. Worst part was that a bunch had slid up against the curb which had a lot of wet mud along it. I cleaned them off best I could when I got home, used bleach to lighten the muddy spots and ended up using the worst ones under the fridge, in the closet, etc. Made the best of a bad situation and no one knows about them, except me. :wink:

Heading into work years ago every set of railway tracks or good bump in the road there were a few dead chickens on the highway.
It was a 30 mile trip and I never did catch up to the vehicle loosing the birds.
Probably 30-40 birds shy of a load by the time the vehicle reached its destination based on what I saw but for all I know it may have started 100 miles before it went by my place.

Yep, them kind of things can happen. Money aint so easy to come by these days for all too many of us.

Years ago when I lived in Illinois one of the fellas that I used to ride motor scooters with used to like to head into a flea market that was open every weekend. OK, sometimes I'd ride in with him, take a look around, sometimes pick up an interesting or useful item like an old still working Black and Decker electric spark plug cleaner. But I used to see all kinds of serious contractor tools for sale, the good quality expensive stuff. I used to tell him, "Tomorrow some fella is going to show up for work to do a job and be mighty angry because his tools are right here". I could've been wrong.

Mark
Black & Decker made a blue one just like this

In our county, a log truck loaded with pine logs lost a log, it went through the windshield of the car behind him killing the driver who had her 5 year old daughter in the car. Truck driver never realized he lost the log and never knew he'd killed that poor woman. No one ever was able to identify who the log truck or its driver.

I saw a pickup load of folding chairs go flying out on Main Street of a small town one evening when the teen aged driver gunned it. The racket echoed off the buildings getting everybody's attention. The kid carefully restacked them and drove away slowly.

We were stopped at a intersection where 2 highways intersected. I was at the intersection A rendering truck was coming down the road he got A yellow light and threw the brakes on. That truck never had a top on it. And the liquid & cow- pig parts came forward and the guy had his window down because it was hot. OH my God that stunk it had to be 100 out and some of the contents went into the window of the truck.

In the mid to late 70's I was sent out to tow a coca-cola truck in. Both sides were open full of empty bottles I don't think they had went to doors to enclose them at that time. It was in a parking lot on the side of a hill, I hook up and pull into the street the truck rocked to the right and dumped all the bottles out before I could get a handle on it, it rocked to the left and dumped all the bottles out on that side also.

I shovel all the glass into the lower bins and head for the distributor to plead my case. I think a bottle at that time was worth a dime I was in deep dodo. I found the owner and knew this was not going to go over well. He told me to pull it around to the other side of the building there was a guy crushing bottles I did and a guy was putting bottles in a 55gal drum and busting them How lucky can you get they were phasing out those bottles.