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OT: What is honest thing to do with found on road items

D

Doug in Illinois

Member
Hello again everyone, my full time job is as a rural mail carrier on a 86 mile route. I have lost magnetic signs off my car in the past, never to be found. Having said that, I once in a while find anything from wood blocks someone lost, to the occasional tool, hub caps, etc. Today I picked up a SMV sign, could tell it had been run over a couple times but still usable. Would like to get this back to rightful owner, but if I set it by the side of the road in plain sight, not too sure the person who lost it will get it. My gone for good magnets are proof of that. Thought about putting up a note at the local gas station of what I found, and in the instance of this sign, have possible owner tell me what roads they travelled and how it was attached, as the had it baling wired on. DOUG
 
It's not worth anything,they don't cost much new.I would just pitch it or use it yourself.
 
Arent they something like $7??

If i lost one, i would buy another and get whatever i needed to do in the field done. Sure, spending money isnt fun, but it beats not spraying the corn because it got too tall, having hay on the ground too long, or driving all over looking for a chunk of metal. I say keep it.
 
In the last couple years, I have found two 12 inch crescent wrenches, and a nice mag light flashlight. I watch the lost and found in the paper for a while to see if someone puts an add in. After a while I figure they have written them off as a loss. I haven't gone so far as to pay for an add to say I found something.
 
Where I grew up, there was a county weekly paper that had free ads for lost items. If you have similar, I'd post it there. If it's valuable to its owner, he'll be looking in those ads. If it ain't, he won't and you can keep it in good conscience.
 
Hey Doug,

Many years ago I was driving into New Orleans with my brother's '49 Chevy pickup and a big flatbed truck carrying what I thought was a load of refrigerators whizzed by me at 70+ mph. About a 1/4 mile ahead of me one of the boxes fell off the back of the flatbed. I had to pump up the brakes on the old '49 to get it to stop and pretty much had to steer around the box to avoid running into it. I went to drag the box off the highway and to my surprise the box contained 8 brand new mattresses. These were not normal sized twin mattresses but were smaller width--the size normally installed on large commercial boats like tugs--maybe about 30 inches wide. I waited on the side of the road for about thirty minutes and no one stopped by and the flatbed never came back. I had no way to get in touch with anyone as this was long before the days of cell phones and the highway was pretty desolate. Anyway, to make a long story short, as a shipbuilder, I knew a family back in Mississippi that was building two shrimp boats so I carried the mattresses to them on my return trip. Turns out they were just laying out the racks on the boats and they ended up building the bunk frames to fit these mattresses.

I didn't accept any money but as the shrimpers promised--shortly after the boats had started their first shrimp season, a pickup truck showed up at my place on the river and unloaded about 70 pounds of shrimp. So I guess the moral of the story is that we should exercise reasonable effort toward returning "found on the road items" but there's only so much you can do.

Sorry for the long story but I felt like sharing it.
 
ya sure can find a lot of stuff along the road. i found quite a few binder chains, load binders, coolers tools ect. there is a strech along i-55 from joliet south to the cooling lakes, braidwood, lasalle, and dresden, that you can pick up all kind of boating supplies, life jackets, fishing poles, lawn chairs, coolers, towels, ect. the yacht 'ers throw the stuff in the boat on the trailer and it blows out going down the highway.
 
I'm always finding stuff on the road too. Pipe wrench, pliers, screwdrives, bungi cords etc.. I lost a clevis the other day and lost my bosses chain saw years ago. I figure it will all even out in the end. My brother in law found a .22 rifle last summer, I never find any thing good like that.
 
What bothers me are all the porno magazines I find on the raodsides. If you see a magazine, it is usually a porno issue. Young kids on bicyles don't need to see stuff like this. I pick it up and burn it.
 
Best usable was 6, 20 dollar bills. Had to one up the wife cause she picked up 2 fiftys one time. Well she did one up me again. We were in a large croud and she picked 4, twenties. The rest of the paper money was smaller finds.
 
One time I saw big traffic jam, all cars are trying to get around this big A/C unit in road. I stopped, picked it up, beat out a few dents, put it in the window, and used it for 5 years. How could I find owner and would he have wanted it?
 
the owner probably not looking for it.on my stretch of highway have found the occasional tool,cassette tape,girlie magazine no way to find out owners.friend of mine once lost a set of snap-on crow foot wrenches off service truck on interstate were gone by time he could get turned around
 
almost every tie-down strap i use to haul hay came off the shoulder of i-95. It's amazing how many fall off semi trailers. With morning traffic basically stop-and-go, I'll open the door and pick up stuff without impeding traffic at all.

Best find: 1" drive ratchet- huge momma that I have no sockets for, but sure looks cool.
 
found a sack of 51 $100 bills on side of freeway. turned it in to the texas ranger in the area. got $100 reward.
 
I found a whacker packer in the middle of the road called the cops and told them how to contact me if reported but 4 months later still no call I kept it so that it couldn't disappear while at the police station. talked to the rental co. and they said no. Tried to find a co. with the 3 initials that are on it but no good. these things list on the web for around $4000 and I guess I got one for free I am in const. so now and then I may need it.
 
Type of stuff found depends on your country, I guess- around here, its chain binders off logging trucks. I have accumulated a collection of 5 of them over the years, and can't remember that I've ever bought one. BTW, as to the guy who got $100 reward for turning in $5,100, that was not handled correctly- they should have held the money for a period of time, and if the true owner did not come forward (and drug dealers seldom do), you get the whole pot.
 
Took the W-4 to a parade in Linden Mi.two weeks ago. The SMV sign came unhooked on the way to the start point of the parade. As my wife and I were driving along in the parade, low and behold there was our SMV sign hanging from a no parking sign!!I guess thats why we live here. Nice people. My wife wrote a letter to the editor thanking the person that took the effort to get it back to us.W-4
 
If the item is of obvious value I turn it in at a police station or sheriff's office.

I also leave my name and address and make it known that once the claim period is up I wish to claim it if the proper owner has not.

If possible I get a receipt for the item I've turned in so I have some leverage to get it back. A case number if one is assigned is preferred.

For my area the claim period is 90 days.

Turning items in can be rewarding. I turned a camera in 10-15 years ago and it was claimed the same day. The camera belonged to a German exchange student and had most of his final pictures in the USA on the film in it. Talk about thrilled to get it back, he was!
 
I live along a tar road where we all make hay. I end up piking up a lot of junk - beer bottles, garbage bages, etc. Very once in a while something of small value.

So most anything I pick up is mine. Shoulda tied it down better if you wanted to keep it. Not my fault, and I don't know who the owner really is do I?

--->Paul
 
Those are probably magazines that the kids got out of Dad's stash and ditched them before gettinmg in trouble...

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
Not much you can do about it. Just about a month ago we found a ja cket on the road in front of our house, had the gals work ID in the pocket so we looked them up and called.

Not so much as a thank you.

Have found some other cool stuff though...

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
We usually just hang hub caps and other things on a tree or something, a single hub cap isn't much good unless you happened to own a car with the same ones.

Other things hang onto and watch lost and found ads, no takers, than keepers.

Had a friend lost a GPS unit, they placed an ad, person called and tried to basically get them to buy back from them (I think they offered like a $50 reward for finding it, and the person wanted way more.....)
 
Case really; similar called person by name, LOVE caller ID, told
him I'd report it stolen or would give him the reward his choice.
 
I just bought a new 07 Honda TRX420 ATV and went to pick it up. As I'm walking around to lower my trailer ramps, there laying on the dove tail is my air pressure gauge, 2" dial with a 6" dual stem.

It road there for 70miles and 5miles of dirt washboard. Who wooda thunk!

T_Bone
 
I had a strange experience that was the reverse of losing something off my vehicle. Last week I took a trip to the local country store to get some milk. Was walking back to the car when a glint off the hood catches my eye. As I appraoch I'm amazed to see a handlful of change sitting there on the hood. I scratch my head, looking around - but it's early in the morning and apart from the guy in the store there's no one around. I'm mildly miffed that there's metal coins on my paint but way more intrigued about how they got there.

So I scoop em off, dump em in the cup holder and go on my way. Later that day I'm recounting this strange tale to my wife and a neighbour. As I describe the mysterious happening, the neighbour gets this sheepish look on her face and admits it was her fault. Seems her kid and my kid were bounching on the trampoline out back the day before when change starts flying out of their pockets. So she scoops it up and, for some reason, decided the hood of my car was best place for the pile.

I'm amazed it stayed there for the ten mile drive over some pretty bad roads, but even more amazed I was so oblivious as to not notice it when getting in the car. The slope of the hood is such that it wasn't visible from the drivers seat but usually I at least give a vehicle a once over before I drive it. Course, it was a pre-coffee excursion - hence the reason for the drive in the first place...
 
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