I saw this article (https://www.wbay.com/2022/08/11/video-truck-loses-porta-potties-highway-several-cars-damaged/) about a truck losing its cargo of porta-potties on I-94 and thought it might be interesting and fun for people to share stories on bizarre and/or unexpected items on freeways from accidents.
This accident produced one of my all-time favorite headlines:
(https://i.imgur.com/YlvGN0h.jpg)
We had two in the span of a week in MN last winter. One was potatoes (which the "mashed" taters then froze to the road and created hazardous driving conditions). I forgot what the other one was, but I think it was beets.
The Seattle area has a running list (//http://://www.thestranger.com/news/2019/04/12/26479809/the-weird-shit-that-has-spilled-on-seattle-highways) of these:
March 2015 - Salmon guts (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/overturned-fish-truck-creates-highway-99-rush-hour-debacle/) spill over the viaduct and shut down traffic for 9 hours. City descended into chaos.
April 2015 - 14 million bees (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/rolled-semi-spills-load-of-bees-at-the-i-5-and-i-405-interchange/) on I-5 in Lynnwood
May 2015 - Rotting animal carcasses (http://komonews.com/news/local/truck-spills-rotting-carcasses-onto-i-5-slowing-traffic) on I-5 this time
April 2016 - Frozen crabs (https://mynorthwest.com/255127/crabpocalypse-how-it-compared-to-seattles-fish-truck-fiasco-of-2015/), also on the viaduct
April 2016 - Human waste in Everett
May 2018 - Chicken feathers (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/semi-filled-with-chicken-feathers-overturns-on-i-5-in-federal-way/) in Federal Way
Nothing of Value Lost as Bud Light Truck Overturns on Kentucky Highway
https://jalopnik.com/nothing-of-value-lost-as-bud-light-truck-overturns-on-k-1849402068
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/freeway-chickens/
There was a claim about the Hollywood Freeway Chickens. The origins was allegedly from an overturn truck carrying chickens on US-101.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/06/local/la-me-then6-2009dec06
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/7500-pounds-of-live-eels-spill-onto-oregon-highway-coat-cars-in-slime/
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the eel spill.
February 2012: Sauerkraut spill after truck crashes in Germany. (https://www.reuters.com/article/oukoe-uk-germany-sauerkraut/frozen-sauerkraut-causes-german-motorway-chaos-idUKTRE8161K520120207)
QuoteWith temperatures far below zero for the last week, the sauerkraut froze almost instantly and created impassable obstacles, causing traffic to back up for 10 km. The motorway was completely shut down for four hours while authorities struggled to scrape the frozen sauerkraut away.
A few years ago there was an incident with a truck carrying cash spilling it onto I-285. This, of course, created somewhat of a traffic jam due to some drivers pulling over to pick up some of the cash.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/10/us/atlanta-drivers-grab-i-285-cash-trnd
The one time I was in Portland, some small box truck had a bunch of Swiffers fall out the back of it on I-5 just south of I-84. I'll always remember that because of the irony of a big mess of something made to clean up messes. :-D
About 8-10 years ago I was driving south on I-81 in Virginia (around Wytheville or so) when traffic ground to a complete halt. Everybody was "parked" on the interstate for about three hours.
Later found out that a strawberry truck had overturned, and the mess needed to be cleaned up.
By the time the road cleared and traffic started moving, I did see the accident site a few miles down the road, but no sign of the spilled load.
Quote from: ran4sh on August 12, 2022, 09:21:57 PM
A few years ago there was an incident with a truck carrying cash spilling it onto I-285. This, of course, created somewhat of a traffic jam due to some drivers pulling over to pick up some of the cash.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/10/us/atlanta-drivers-grab-i-285-cash-trnd (https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/10/us/atlanta-drivers-grab-i-285-cash-trnd)
I never understood why people would be stupid enough to actually record themselves or others taking all that cash (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETYRDwJhOfw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETYRDwJhOfw)). If you want to get away with something the last thing you do is plaster it all over social media.
I remember a radio traffic report once–I don't remember when, but it would have been on WTOP-FM–about an incident somewhere in the DC area involving a highway entrance ramp being closed because a box of nails had fallen off a truck.
Elsewhere on the forum I've mentioned the day in July 2007 when a Budweiser truck overturned on the old left-side ramp from the I-495 Inner Loop to westbound I-66. A bunch of the beer cans burst open and it was the typical hot, humid DC-area afternoon. The stench of skunked Budweiser was nauseating. (I remember when this occurred because we were driving back from a trip to Nova Scotia and passed through on the Beltway and got stuck in slow traffic. I had neglected to listen to a traffic report.)
News of yesterday's Alfredo sauce tragedy on I-55 in Memphis has led me to a site called TruckSpills.com (http://truckspills.com/) which has photos of quite a few of these incidents.
Scrolling down not too far, the January 2022 spill of "animal entrails and meat waste" in Melbourne, Australia looks impressively gross.
I was once driving with my girlfriend (now my wife) on I-44 in urban Saint Louis. Four lanes of westbound traffic going 60 mph. In front of us was an Old Dominion truck pulling double trailers. The door on the rear trailer had rolled up at some point. In between the rearmost pallet and the door were a bunch of empty pallets, standing up on end; those were now falling out of the trailer, one by one every minute or so, onto the Interstate, subsequently skidding back and forth at highway speed until friction slowed them down and they settled–well, some on the shoulder, others on a lane line, others in less convenient places. Driving was like playing chicken with a completely unpredictable opponent. Eventually I managed to navigate the maze of falling pallets, pulled up alongside the truck cab, honked the horn a few times, and had my wife motion for the driver to roll his window down. I shouted across to him, "You're dropping pallets!" He couldn't understand, so I shouted it again, louder. Oh, my! you should have seen the look on his face as it finally made sense to him. He immediately got off at the next exit.
And then a few days ago a bunch of tomatoes wound up on I-80 in California.
Catfish, anyone? Northbound I-95 has been closed this morning near Exit 61 in Godwin due to an overturned tractor-trailer carrying live fish. Several different radio stations are indeed reporting live catfish spilled onto the highway.
https://www.wral.com/crash-closes-entire-direction-of-i-95-north-of-fayetteville/20526432/
There's a separate thread on the sex toy spill in Oklahoma.
Every so often, loads of chicken offal will be deposited onto roads in western Kentucky.
Some years ago, a pumper truck for septic tanks and porta-potties had an incident in Montgomery County, Ky., that resulted in sewage being spilled along the highway.
And we have the occasional livestock truck crash where cattle or pigs go loose on the highway.