Unusual debris sightings on the interstate

[PurdueBill]

A box, marked "This Side Up" with the arrow pointing down to the pavement.

I'll see a box inverted and raise a flatbed full of them. 

Personally witnessed on I-71 back in 2007.  All the boxes were like that.

As far as things on the road, I once had to go around a moving box on I-70 in Indiana; a few miles up the road I saw the pickup that lost it, clearly overloaded/overstacked with matching boxes not tied down enough.  I managed to find a Marks-A-Lot and a McDonald's napkin and wrote "YOU LOST A BOX" on the unfolded napkin, and held it to the passenger window as I got alongside them and made sure they saw it.  The driver and passenger saw it and just shrugged.  Made me wonder if they just didn't care at all or if they intentionally lost the box.

Once about 10 years ago I passed several people trying to get what was left of a dinette set out of the two leftmost lanes of the Everett Turnpike just into NH.  Being dark, it was somewhat dangerous.

[cjk374]

I saw an alligator carcass in the breakdown lane of westbound I-20 between the Tallulah and Mound exits (171 & 182).

[Laura]

I found a record player on the shoulder of Thomas Road in Lynchburg, VA in March 2009. It was in two pieces (the lid and the rest of the player) and it looked like it fell out of a truck. I took it home, then to the local record store to see if he could check it out. He referred me to a guy who referred me to a guy to fix it up. Twenty five dollars later, it works perfectly today.


iPhone

[JREwing78]

I had a metal shelving frame instantly appear in my travel lane on NBD US-127 around the east side of Jackson, MI at 1am as I was crossing the overpass at Michigan Ave. I swerved to avoid the assembly, but my back end came around and hit the gravel shoulder. I steered left to counteract the oversteer, and ended up putting it in the median, running over a culvert, causing me to blow my tire.

There was traffic coming up on it behind me later that swerved to avoid it; one hit it and knocked it out of the roadway. That made explaining what happened to the State Police more interesting, when they found me changing the tire on the right-shoulder and couldn't find the shelving I said was there.

[kennyshark]

My all-time favorite is the couch in the middle express lane of I-96 eastbound near the Southfield Freeway in Detroit in the mid-00's.  The car ahead of me did a dramatic brake-and-swerve, but I did not see the couch until it was too late.  Fortunately, I ended up just brushing the corner of the couch and got a few minor scratches on my car.   Along with a Christmas shopping story for the ages.

[Brandon]

I-55 around here is a veritable obstacle course some days.  I have seen the following there:

Chairs (including a pair that sat by MP 267 for about 3 weeks)
Couches
Pallets
Lumber
Plywood
Coolers
Mattresses
Box Springs
Mufflers
Drive Shafts
Hoods (yes, there's a hood on the left shoulder currently by MP 268)
Tires (not just shreds, but whole fucking tires)
Hubcaps
Appliances (up to and including stoves and refrigerators)

That's not even including the overturned trucks, like the potato truck that overturned in the median back in 2006 or so (before the third lane was added).

[Brandon]

Tires in the road are pretty commonplace, of course, but on my way home a few weeks ago I saw one merrily bouncing down the middle of the southbound carriageway of I-285, high enough into the air for me to be able to see it traveling northbound.

One of those actually impacted itself into a windshield of a Nissan Versa a few weeks ago on the Bishop Ford Freeway (I-94) near 130th or so and killed the driver.

[theline]

Not unusual, but it is perplexing.  I'm always amazed at the number of shoes seen along the roadways.  How do you manage to take off your shoe and toss it out the window?   

My guess is that some people like to stick their feet up on the dashboard and the wind catches their sandal or something and blows it out. But I really have no idea.

My guess is that a kid (or immature adult) is taking out some anger on another passenger in the car by chucking his or her shoe out the window. If it was a smelly old sneaker, Mom or Dad may not have bothered going back.

[agentsteel53]

As an Adopt-A-Highway volunteer since 1998, I've seen many things. The oddest was either the dead dog in a bag or the empty vial of medical marijuana on I-5 in Grapevine Canyon.

I dunno, I posit dead raven in a plastic bag as being more unusual.  who would have been in a position to dispose of a raven???

[Brandon]

As an Adopt-A-Highway volunteer since 1998, I've seen many things. The oddest was either the dead dog in a bag or the empty vial of medical marijuana on I-5 in Grapevine Canyon.

I dunno, I posit dead raven in a plastic bag as being more unusual.  who would have been in a position to dispose of a raven???

Don't know, but it will nevermore be a raven.

[agentsteel53]

A traffic cone with a black base laying on its side in the middle of a travel lane.  It was at night; making the black base difficult to see.  It also didn't help that I was sneezing just prior to encountering it.  I opened my eyes from sneezing and had a split second to slam on the brakes and jerk the car into the left lane to avoid it.  Fortunately it was late at night and I was the only car around.  Still, I must have missed that cone by inches.

once, in the middle of the night somewhere in Atlanta, I had just passed a speed limit 35 sign and was heading forward, when I needed to slam the brakes because I had seen ... something.  I came to a stop inches from a pile of concrete rubble, covered in a black tarp.

[cbeach40]

Used to do incident response dispatch for MTO in the Toronto area, so lots of stuff. Some memorable ones-
- Couch (which the owners came back and dragged all the way across the QEW, dodging traffic as they went)
- shelves from a bookcase - went airborne and sailed off the back of a truck
- bales of hay
- ladder (that subsequently was run over by a transport and cut its brake line)
- ramp blocked by a pile of sand that fell from a dump truck
- ducks (lots wander out into the highway)
- many, many cars
- washer-dryer combination (which the owner went back into the QEW to get - and it did not go well)
- human body (had a jumper on the QEW - was unfortunate enough to watch the whole thing unfold in front of me)

[PHLBOS]

I remember KYW in Philadelphia did a radio promo titled something like "Extreme Makeover: Expressway Edition"  which was a compilation of some of the household and home improvement stuff they had actually reported being in the road during traffic updates–like a couch, a load of plywood, a desk, paint cans, kitchen cabinets...

A few years ago, one mock-picture in the Philadelphia Inquirer had a ROADSIDE POTLUCK caption that listed the various food truck accidents/overturns within a 2-month period; one of them being an overturned truck along I-95 near PA 611 carrying hams... some of which fell onto the approach ramps to/from Broad St. underneath.

Back in the mid-70s, there were 2 accidents along MA 128 near MA 114 in Peabody involving cargo spilling out of overturned trucks onto the highway: the first one involved fish-meal, the second one involved lumber roughly 2 days later.  The front page of the Salem Evening News following the 2nd crash had the headline that read First Fish; Now Sticks.  I know, the above-example's not an Interstate; but still an interesting tid-bit (IMHO). 

Prior to the last piece of I-95 in Peabody being fully built and open to traffic in 1988; there was tons of debris (including furniture and bed matresses) all over the then-dirt roadbed (that was originally placed circa 1972) by/underneath the Forest St. overpass.  The area looked like a junkyard.

One time back in the mid-80s, while driving along I-95/MA 128 in Burlington; a truck in front of me carrying haybales dropped one right on the road.  Fortunately, I was far enough away to swerve away from it (the haybale).  As far as I know, the truck kept on going.

[triplemultiplex]

I have a theory about the shoes.  I've seen enough front seat passengers with their feet hanging out the window as the vehicle is driving along for that to be the source of some of those shoes.  Assuming they are untied or loose-fitting or flip-flops, I can envision one coming off in the 70 mph 'wind' outside the vehicle.

Most of the debris that I've seen on interstates is a rehash of what's been said already.  A few days ago, I saw an empty refrigerator box fly out the back of a pick-up truck.  Guy didn't even stop.

I had to dodge some recently fallen boxes in Portland on the ramp from 5 NB to 84 EB in addition to the guys attempting to clear them from the freeway this past spring.  The contents of the boxes?  Swiffers.  Lots and lots of Swiffers.

[US71]

Not on the interstate, but I found some pieces of abandoned U Channel posts over the weekend. Looked like AHTD replaced a downed sign, but forgot to pick up the damaged posts.

[jeffandnicole]

I had a mattress hit my car on the fly once.  Damn karma...we were behind the vehicle laughing at the wobbling mattress for a few seconds before it became airborne!

It's kinda common in NJ to see items along the highway that had been destined for someone's week at the shore.  I always want to see their reactions when they are unpacking at their beach house, like they'll be scratching their heads knowing that they packed it before they left.

[Pete from Boston]

A traffic cone with a black base laying on its side in the middle of a travel lane.  It was at night; making the black base difficult to see.  It also didn't help that I was sneezing just prior to encountering it.  I opened my eyes from sneezing and had a split second to slam on the brakes and jerk the car into the left lane to avoid it.  Fortunately it was late at night and I was the only car around.  Still, I must have missed that cone by inches.

once, in the middle of the night somewhere in Atlanta, I had just passed a speed limit 35 sign and was heading forward, when I needed to slam the brakes because I had seen ... something.  I came to a stop inches from a pile of concrete rubble, covered in a black tarp.

I knew someone who was in a very similar situation (concrete in the road at a construction site, unmarked), hit the concrete, and was in the hospital off and on for months.  Consider yourself lucky.

[1995hoo]

I've never understood the desire to ride with your foot out the window or even up on the dashboard. No doubt some of that is because my father would have punished me had I tried that in his car when I was a kid, but it still strikes me as not very comfortable and not very safe.

[briantroutman]

I've never understood the desire to ride with your foot out the window or even up on the dashboard. No doubt some of that is because my father would have punished me had I tried that in his car when I was a kid, but it still strikes me as not very comfortable and not very safe.

This has been a pet peeve of mine for a few years now, particularly in the summer months: front seat passengers–usually a dozed-off wife or girlfriend, but worse, sometimes the ungainly husband/boyfriend clad in his filthy, ankle-height Walmart socks–with their feet up on the dashboard, toes pressed against the windshield, complete with a nice glazing of foot sweat on the glass.

But beyond looking like white trash, there's a greater to the passenger: Your feet are sitting right on top of the passenger airbag. What do you think is going to happen when it deploys? Combined with a reclined setback, you're likely to submarine under the seatbelt (assuming you're wearing it) and have your knees rocketed into your face.

[vdeane]

I have a theory about the shoes.  I've seen enough front seat passengers with their feet hanging out the window as the vehicle is driving along for that to be the source of some of those shoes.  Assuming they are untied or loose-fitting or flip-flops, I can envision one coming off in the 70 mph 'wind' outside the vehicle.

Front seat passengers are nothing.  I once drove for several miles down NY 104 with a car right behind me where the DRIVER had his bare foot out the window!

[Jardine]

I had a tailgater annoying me one day and I noted a pallet in my lane ahead.  There was no traffic in the passing lane, so I delayed swerving to avoid the pallet till the last second.

Butt sniffer behind me ran right over it.

I didn't hang around to see how it turned out, but I'd like to think he needed a tow.

[Thing 342]

A dead moose (Alaska, off of the AK-1 freeway)
A bucket full of tennis balls (I-85, south of Petersburg)
A boat (off of I-64 near Providence Forge, hitch had come undone)
A family of ducks trying to cross eight-lane I-64 near Hampton

[allniter89]

Most Halloween nights I see the broken remains of pumpkins that have jumped from overpasses onto the highway. I guess the idea that Halloween is gone for another year depressed them so they jumped.

[Zzonkmiles]

South Carolina is terrible when it comes to keeping its roadways clean.

Just saw a lawnchair or beach chair in the median on I-20. I guess it had fallen off the back of a truck because it was not secured. Not too unusual, but I do wonder if some people (non-government) actually enjoy collecting this kind of stuff from the roads and making a profit off it by selling it on Ebay? Is that even legal?

[1995hoo]

South Carolina is terrible when it comes to keeping its roadways clean.

Just saw a lawnchair or beach chair in the median on I-20. I guess it had fallen off the back of a truck because it was not secured. Not too unusual, but I do wonder if some people (non-government) actually enjoy collecting this kind of stuff from the roads and making a profit off it by selling it on Ebay? Is that even legal?

Might depend on state law. I don't know about any specific statutes, but I'd guess there's a fair chance that many states have no specific law collecting debris but do have a law prohibiting stopping except in an emergency (at least on Interstate-grade roads, anyway), and the latter effectively prohibits the former because you'd likely have to stop on the shoulder (in violation of the law) to collect the debris.