Tie your stuff down!

[Potomac30]

I don't have a photo, but I'm sure that you can all picture it... last week, driving down I-85-S, I see a Sport Trac with a dresser and a couch stuck in the back end. Fortunately everyone on the road was far enough away when the couch sailed out of the back and rolled down the highway into the median. I thought about speeding up to let them know what had happened, but then I decided it was a Darwin moment for them and at least they didn't hurt anyone else. Tie it down.

 

[Joe Dirt]

Agreed- I always love to see people holding a matress or plywood with arms out the window and one single piece of that brown twine that's supposed to be used to hold red overlength flags!

...like they're gonna hold it if the twine breaks.

 

[Brett F.]

LOL They had to have heard and felt it go out.

I-85 Greenville or Gaffney side of Spartanburg?

 

[Jothcra]

Back when our explorer was new, we went to Home Depot and bought a screen door. My dad lashed it to the roof rack with BUNGEE CORDS. Needless to say, we hit a bump, door becomes a sail. It snaps and half and narrowly missed the guy behind us.

 

[Potomac30]

I-85 S in NC between Greeneville and Charlotte. It took them about a mile to realize that they had lightened their load.

 

[MustangP51]

good thing no one hit it.

 

[sparkyXplorer]

Driving down I-25 in Denver a F550 was pulling a enclosed trailer and behind that was a F350 pulling an open trailer....all but the last trailer we painted up and decals all over for some racing team...

Me an my step dad were in the lane next to them or one over, and when that second trailer went over a bump a 17inch wide or so drag slick came poping out of the trailer and hit the car right behind it...lucky enough it didn't hit the window cause they aren't lite at all but watching a huge slick rebounding off of the front end of a car and going like 30ft in the air only to be hit by more cars going the oppisite direction was kind of cool

 

[wrigley_1285]

This reminds me of what happened to me a few years back in my 94 B3000. I was driving on I-74 back to Illinois and the mini van in front of me had one of those soft luggage containers on top of it. And the idiot obviously didn't know how to strap it down. So when it came of the top of the van directly in front of me I had no time to swerve into the other lane because someone was in the way. And had no time to slam on the brakes B/C the semi was riding my a$$ so bad. When I hit the luggage container it ripped off my mud flap and busted a turn signal. He pulled over and I pulled over right behind him. In exchange for him messing up my truck I found out that I had ran over all of their x-mas presents. Hope that taught someone to tie sh*t down.

 

[Texan01]

I was helping a friend pick up his dining room chairs about 10 years ago, they were 2 to a box and he had like 10 of them in the back of his El Camino. We're tooling up the road at a steady 60mph when a gust of wind blows about 1/2 of them out. I was following him and stopped traffic to gather them up, I now know a '76 Chevelle sedan can accomodate 8 chairs inside and in the trunk.

Bad thing about El Caminos is there are no tiedown points in them. to strap anything down requires you attaching it directly to the frame.

Needless to say, unless I'm going down the block at less than 40mph, I tie everything down good and tight.

 

[Willard]

I remember once we were moving and using my dad's cherokee. We had a piece of plywood lashed to the roof rack, we thought it was good enough, it apparently wasn't. Right before we got to where we were going it blew off and landed in the middle of an intersection. We parked, ran into the middle of the road and picked it up. It was funny.

 

[BWilliams]

This reminds me of what happened to me a few years back in my 94 B3000. I was driving on I-74 back to Illinois and the mini van in front of me had one of those soft luggage containers on top of it. And the idiot obviously didn't know how to strap it down. So when it came of the top of the van directly in front of me I had no time to swerve into the other lane because someone was in the way. And had no time to slam on the brakes B/C the semi was riding my a$$ so bad. When I hit the luggage container it ripped off my mud flap and busted a turn signal. He pulled over and I pulled over right behind him. In exchange for him messing up my truck I found out that I had ran over all of their x-mas presents. Hope that taught someone to tie sh*t down.

I would hope that you either exchanged insurance information or he gave you some money to repair the damage... it was his fault, so he should have covered your damage regardless of what you did to his container.

 

[Blazepet7]

Driving on I-84 going from NY to Ct. had just got the x doing about 70-75 i had my girl family behind us , it was dark all of a sudden out of nowhere this love seat appears in front of the truck i dodged this thing by inches almost flipping it. my girls family missed it also but when we called the cops they said that they had already picked a couch up from I 84 a couple of miles ahead of us...guess he lost both...sucks learn how to tie a real knot..

 

[hunterdan]

Driving down I-81 In Harrisburg, PA a few years ago I was several cars behind a truck with a bed liner, we were going over a bridge on a rather windy day when a gust hit the truck, and pulled the bed liner right out along with his tools and right into the Susquehanna River... Another time I was heading to work on I-83 out there and a refrigerator door flew out the back of a truck, the truck had a tarp on it which obviously did nothing to keep the door in. Narrowly missed the SUV behind it. Proper tie downs are a must, those ratchet straps are great, just as long as they are rated for more than the load.

 

[Stic-o]

I always keep 4 Rachet straps in the truck, they should be factory equipment if you have a truck bed.

I learned the hard way when I first started driving. I worked for a company the rebuilt electric motors. We picked one up that weighed about 600lbs. and just set it in the back of the truck, my boss said it had enough weight to not go anywhere. We went through a freeway interchange, and the motor shifted in the bed at about 65mph. we started to fishtail, with the motor moving back in forth with every correction, making it worse. before I knew it, we were on our roof. Luckly it was a old late 60's F-250. So it didn't crush the roof. If it wasn't for my lap belt (they didn't make sholder belts then) I wouldn't be typing this.

Tie stuff down, and ware your seat belt!

 

[mr.p]

driving I-80 east in a company truck doing about 65-70 with cars all cruched together as is in the bay area. its an old ford flatbed diesel dually driving driving driving about 3 car lengths to the car in front of me, and i see the car swerve to the left...well for one this truck wont fit in the shoulder, and 2 this thing was going to the shop to get an inspection to be condemned....soooooo...i ranover a 15-20ft wooden ladder at about 70 the truck bucked and what not but didnt skip a beat...glad i wasnt driving a honda :|

oh and i hate how some ppl try to take in cardboard by piling it up i na b3000 or little toyota pickup with homeade siderails and twine and its piled about 6 feet above the car :| oh and another dangerous mention is when they try to recycle pallets wooden pallets :| same way as the cardboard 15-20 ft high and leaning to the left or right.....

 

[wrigley_1285]

I would hope that you either exchanged insurance information or he gave you some money to repair the damage... it was his fault, so he should have covered your damage regardless of what you did to his container.

The turn signal was a little messed up before and I wasn't going to pin all of the damage on him. And I ended up taking the mud flaps off anyways.