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Car Damage from Projectiles

Started by DaBigE, February 23, 2018, 01:04:17 AM

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DaBigE

Curious to see what interesting or unusual objects have damaged your vehicles while out driving. I am not referring to damage caused when parked and/or damage caused by a collision by another vehicle, a falling tree, or 'common' animal (deer, dog, squirrel, bird droppings, etc.). I'm talking about unusual items that hit your car while driving and what kind of pain they inflicted to your ride.

My example: While running errands in a snow storm a couple weeks ago, I was heading EB and a municipal snowplow was heading WB. It kicked up/threw a 5" solid rock of road salt at my car. I'm used to small pellets of salt being thrown, but a 5" solid mass of it?!?? Upon initial inspection, it shattered the lower grille of my car and hitched a ride between my lower bumper cover and the radiator/AC condenser. Upon inspection by the body shop and insurance co., the AC condenser was dented and pushed in against and damaging my radiator, both necessitating replacement.
"We gotta find this road, it's like Bob's road!" - Rabbit, Twister


jakeroot

Quote from: DaBigE on February 23, 2018, 01:04:17 AM
I am not referring to damage...caused by a collision by...[a] 'common' animal (deer, dog, squirrel, bird droppings, etc.)

What about an actual bird?

Back in 2005, while travelling with my family in Renton, Washington, we collided with a small bird (no idea what kind). We made a sharp turn, and we must have surprised the bird. Killed on impact. Cracked our windshield.

TheHighwayMan3561

About four years ago I hit three different birds in about a three mile span on MN 61 heading southbound into Duluth. No damage was done to my windshield but my friend who had tagged along for the day was in laughing hysterics.
self-certified as the dumbest person on this board for 5 years running

Brandon

Bailed-up chain link fencing on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  It either dropped off the pickup in front of me, or he bounced over it, and I saw it at the last moment and had to go directly over it.  Couldn't dodge right or left (concrete barrier and vehicles).  A bit of bumper damage I had to hold up with electrical tape till I got back, and lost an undercarriage plastic plate, but that's about it.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

jeffandnicole

The most road damage I experienced was a large tire tread on 95 in Delaware several years ago sitting across 2 lanes.  Heavy traffic, didn't see it till the last moment, and a vehicle in the adjoining lane nicked it and nudged it into my lane not helping matters.  The bumper popped off slightly, which I clicked back into place.  It spidered the paint on the bumper, which I never got repaired.  And the fog light cover popped off.  A friend of ours who works in an auto repair shop got us the part and painted it the proper color for us.

roadman

#5
Worst road damage I've ever experienced was from multiple small stones coming off the back of a dump truck (traffic was too congested for me to either back off to a safe distance or get around the truck).  Pitted my windshield in several places, which eventually resulted in a large crack, requiring me to replace the windshield.

However, over my 38+ years of driving, I've had several close calls - everything from a mattress to a Little Tikes basketball hoop.
"And ninety-five is the route you were on.  It was not the speed limit sign."  - Jim Croce (from Speedball Tucker)

"My life has been a tapestry
Of years of roads and highway signs" (with apologies to Carole King and Tom Rush)

SectorZ

Worst for me was a slew of stones out the back of a dump truck. I'll count myself lucky.

This will sound dark, but a friend of mine can claim 'human being' in this thread. A pedestrian was hit crossing a road and was thrown airborne into the windshield of my friend's car. The pedestrian sadly did not survive the event.

corco

Two unusual ones:

1) In 2010, I was on I-80 heading west towards Cheyenne in very heavy winds and a rock or something struck my REAR windshield and immediately shattered it.

2) In 2015, I was driving on Montana Secondary 313 and there were a bunch of pheasants on the side of the road. As I moved over to avoid the pheasants, one of them was particularly stupid and jumped up towards me, taking out my passenger side mirror but inflicting no other damage on the car.

Max Rockatansky

A trucker hit a coyote once in front of me on I-17 when I was heading to Seonda before subrise.  The debris went flying all the place which included a copious coating of gore all over my car.   I had to get that car buffed due to the blood baking on in the sun as I drove home late in the afternoon. 

Rothman

Had an oncoming truck fling a rock at my windshield on a bridge in NC (i.e., rock was flung forward out of the truck rather than off the rear).  Still have no idea how the physics worked there.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

abefroman329

My parents have had two separate occasions where a deer ran into their car.

Rushmeister

#11
I once took a golf ball in the middle of the driver-side door. I did not hear anyone call 'fore'.

Since my divot repair tool proved to be useless in repairing the dent, a body shop technician was enlisted to make the door look like new again.
...and then the psychiatrist chuckled.

jeffandnicole

A story in this week's Philly Inquirer mentioned one of the Phillies' players during batting practice hit a ball over the outfield fence...and it smacked into the manager's rental vehicle, leaving a nice-size dent.

The boss wasn't upset about it.  It's a rental after all. :-)

formulanone

1996: Struck a seagull with my bumper which chose the wrong time to fly off the curb in rush-hour traffic on FL 838. No damage.

2010: Had two small birds hit the bumper of my car while travelling on CR 621 near Sebring. They were flying very low...only popped out my towing eyelet cover.

When working in a service department, customers would run over all sorts of things. Usually, they're found in the tires (or even the wheel cavity), but typically animal or vegetable. But sometimes things struck the front grille or undertray/splashguard; my favorite was a Swiss Army knife that thankfully didn't puncture anything else (though we found an unrelated nail in his tire). He then feared someone had tried to sabotage his car, but that knife looked like it had been laying the road for a while, so he calmed down.

1995hoo

Quote from: jeffandnicole on February 23, 2018, 12:46:23 PM
A story in this week's Philly Inquirer mentioned one of the Phillies' players during batting practice hit a ball over the outfield fence...and it smacked into the manager's rental vehicle, leaving a nice-size dent.

The boss wasn't upset about it.  It's a rental after all. :-)


I seem to recall hearing that Jayson Werth hit his own vehicle with a spring training home run a few years ago.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

GenExpwy

Not a projectile, but a slightly odd flat-tire story...

Thirty-ish years ago, my mother got a new car. An aftermarket thing it had was some sort of goop, sprayed on the inside of the tires, guaranteed to automatically seal punctures or else the company would replace the tire for free.

A few weeks later, she called my brother and me to come change a flat tire. The culprit turned out to be a little piece of metal that was bent into a sort of triangular tube. The anti-flat stuff sealed around the outside of the tube, but couldn't do anything about the inside. The dealer had quite a fight with the supplier to get the free tire.

Mother liked to joke about how her only flat tire was the one guaranteed not to get a flat. :-D

Duke87

Quote from: Rothman on February 23, 2018, 10:20:46 AM
Had an oncoming truck fling a rock at my windshield on a bridge in NC (i.e., rock was flung forward out of the truck rather than off the rear).  Still have no idea how the physics worked there.

This happened to me on US 90 in western Texas. By the time I got to an auto glass place the resulting crack had run big enough that I needed a completely new windshield.

I can see two ways this might happen:

1) the rock becomes loosely lodged in the tread of one of the truck tires, but then gets flung outward by centrifugal force when it nears the top of the wheel's rotation. Due to the physics of rolling the top of the wheel is moving forward faster than the vehicle it is attached to (while the very bottom of the wheel instantaneously achieves zero velocity - this is why the coefficient of friction while rolling is the static coefficient, and you lose traction if your wheels lock and you start sliding). Any projectile flung off of a wheel near the top would thereby be flung forward at a greater velocity than the vehicle is traveling.

2) The projectile is flung backwards by one of the truck's wheels but then hits some protrusion of the truck's body (or the back of the wheel well) such that it ricochets forward like a batted baseball.
If you always take the same road, you will never see anything new.

tchafe1978

I had a wild turkey take off from the side of the road directly over the hood of my car. The turkey grazed the hood. I later noticed a few minor scratches in the hood from what might have been the turkey's feet. Don't know if the turkey was injured, but he kept on going.

My father in law had a large piece of metal that fell off the back of a truck hauling scrap in front of him go through the center of his windshield and land in the back seat. A foot or so to the left and he probably would have been dead. Luckily he only needed a new windshield.

wxfree

Quote from: jakeroot on February 23, 2018, 02:59:00 AM
Quote from: DaBigE on February 23, 2018, 01:04:17 AM
I am not referring to damage...caused by a collision by...[a] 'common' animal (deer, dog, squirrel, bird droppings, etc.)

What about an actual bird?

Back in 2005, while travelling with my family in Renton, Washington, we collided with a small bird (no idea what kind). We made a sharp turn, and we must have surprised the bird. Killed on impact. Cracked our windshield.

I had a similar incident.  I collided with a vulture.  The only damage was a torn windshield wiper.  The windshield and wiper assembly smelled bad, too.

I once collided with a small bird in an older car with a square face, so instead of gliding over the car the bird was embedded face-first into the grille.  There was no damage.
I'd like to buy a vowel, Alex.  What is E?

wxfree

Years ago I read what I seem to remember as a real news story, not some kind of urban legend, about a pickup following another vehicle at a high speed in west Texas.  The first vehicle ran over a piece of metal and kicked it up into the air.  It hit the pickup and penetrated the windshield, impacting the driver in the chest at high relative speed and killing him.
I'd like to buy a vowel, Alex.  What is E?

Rothman

Oh, I totally took out a turkey vulture with a 26-foot U-Haul truck, right at the grill on I-70 in WV, east of Wheeling. Guts covered the inside of the engine compartment.  Used a power washer to get them off.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

1995hoo

A baby bird, looked like it was just learning to fly, crashed into the grille on my car back sometime between 1995 and 1998 (don't remember when, but I remember it was in Durham and those were the years when I lived there). I pulled off at the next corner and found it dangling dead from the front of the car. No damage to the car, so I used two sticks to pull it out and left it next to the curb under some leaves....felt awful about it even though there was nothing I could have done.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

J N Winkler

Probably the worst projectile damage I have had in recent years is a dimple and small area of missing paint on the hood of my 2005 Toyota Camry (roadtrip car) that I think occurred on US 281 somewhere in central Texas.  I suspect chipseal broke up under the wheels of a vehicle overtaking me, sending a chip skimming off my hood.

After I inspected the damage with a jeweler's loupe, I did some calculations to try to determine the minimum following distance I would need to leave to avoid driving into a small stone thrown up by the wheels of a vehicle in front.  Working on the assumption that a chip travels the farthest when it is tossed up at a 45° angle, I came up with following distance in seconds equal to 9% of the speed in miles per hour--for example, at 70 mph this is 6.3 seconds.

While it is possible (though not especially easy) to maintain a headway this wide on a freeway with other drivers socialized to the two-second rule, it becomes more difficult on congested two-lane roads, since dropping back to restore following distance encourages other cars to pass and cut back in well within chip impact range.  I have had to rethink driving chipsealed two-lanes in Texas.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

jakeroot

Quote from: J N Winkler on February 27, 2018, 12:35:13 AM
After I inspected the damage with a jeweler's loupe

Did you buy one for the occasion, or did you have one sitting around? I'm hoping it's the former.

J N Winkler

Quote from: jakeroot on February 27, 2018, 02:20:31 AM
Quote from: J N Winkler on February 27, 2018, 12:35:13 AM
After I inspected the damage with a jeweler's loupe

Did you buy one for the occasion, or did you have one sitting around? I'm hoping it's the former.

Sorry to disappoint--this one has been in the family for at least 30 years and possibly much longer.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini



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