I was going about 100kph (60mph) on a 4 lane highway, 2 lanes Northa and 2 lanes South. There is no barrier between lanes, just a double solid line. I am in the fast lane just driving normally when I notice up ahead in oncoming traffic a huge extension ladder fly up in the air!

I hit the brakes, not hard, anticipating trouble. The ladder is spinning on the highway coming at me and I have a car beside me in the slow lane. I don't know if he saw what was goin on, but I had to squeeze him over slowly to avoid driving over the ladder.

Funny thing was, I had just finished an Autocross event about an hour earlier and all I invisioned was the ladder being a cone and getting as close to it as I could without knocking it over.

After I passed the ladder I looked in my rear view mirror and there was chaos! There was cars going everywhere with tire smoke and everything. I don't know if anyone crashed or not. It scared the crap out of my wife.

This all proved 2 things, pay attention to traffic at all times and secure your load!!!

 

Whew, glad to hear you, your wife & your pony made it safely... hope the other driver faired ok...

 

Road debris is becoming one of the leading causes of serious accidents in this country. (Don't have the exact stats, but google it and check out the hits.) Several years ago I narrowly missed a full size couch sitting in the middle lane of a three lane highway in my area - fortunately it was late at night; not much traffic, and I was able to swerve into next lane. Idiots who drop loads on highways should be forced to drive over the junk themselves. :bang:

 

I am sure the guy in the truck that lost the ladder poo his pants when he saw the mess it was causing.

 

He probably didn't notice it fell off or if he did he just kept driving - there is a ladder in the roadway almost everday on the traffic reports in Atlanta!

 

Thats Funny. A similar thing happened to me in Vancouver about 10 years ago. I was about to go over the Oak street bridge going to Richmond and there was a crap pickup about 300 feet in front of me that was hauling garbage somewhere and the idots had thrown a multi pane door on top and hadn't strapped it down.
Well sure enough the second he got about twenty feet onto the bridge the wind picked that door right off the top and it was tumbling end over end in the wind and hit the road just in front of me. I slammed the break and luckily there was nobody behind me to hit me.

The moral of both stories is some people are too stupid to live

J