Strange road debris...

[AdventurePoser]

A body....alive, but drunk.

 

Ok, so the kitchen sink wasn't the wierdest....saw a body on the freeway (Patterson and US 101 in the Santa Barbara area, number one lane.

 

This one wasn't alive in fact, the police had not yet put up cones to close the lanes! A detective was near the side of the freeway starting to drop those little orange pylons they use to mark evidence all around the body.

 

As we rode by we noticed the pylons were marking shell casings...LOTS of them!

 

Not good...

 

Steve in So Cal

[algover]

It wasn't all that scary, except maybe for the squirrel.

 

Many years ago, a buddy and I were headed south from Julian to Mt. Laguna on, I think it was, San Diego County route S2. I was in the lead, and, in the distance, saw a squirrel start across from the right side of the road. I rolled-off the throttle to give it time to make it across. At about the center-line, he sees us and starts back to the side he came from. Seeing this, I roll-on the throttle again, ... just as he starts back across, with us approaching fast. I swerve to avoid him, if I can, and glance in the mirror as he changes his mind again, ... then again! My buddy and I are all over this two-lane road - fortunately there is no other traffic around - trying to not hit this maniacal squirrel! I couldn't see what happened to him in the mirrors, but neither of us felt a "thump - thump", so I assume he made it - to wherever he finally decided to go. As we pull to the side of the road, laughing, my buddy exclaims "Did you see that suicidal squirrel?!!"

[Misti]

Racing in Calgary there are gophers all over the track, they run out and sit in the middle and dash back and fourth. The start of the race is about avoiding the gophers, the end of the race is about avoiding gopher guts. They are slippery!

 

Aside from that the occasional deer but nothing as crazy as what has been mentioned....

 

Misti

[Bill_Walker]

Talking of squirrels, have you ever ridden the roads in the vicinity of Parkfield, CA (east of Paso Robles, northeast of San Luis Obispo)? I swear these roads were the inspiration for the GEICO TV commercial where the squirrels congratulate each other for running a car off the road. Must've had a 100 squirrels run across the road in front of me in the space of 5 miles!

[LuckyLeif]

When I started teaching MSF about 10 years ago, we heard that one of our administrators was leaving work on his HD in east coast rush hour traffic. He was immediately behind a pickup which was hauling a whirlpool tub. You guessed it, the load fell from the bed and the rider collided with a whirlpool tub. He was hurt but survived.

Another colleague of mine was a passenger in a car following a truck carrying lumber. Same scenario, the load fell from the truck and a 2x4 penetrated the windshield and struck her head. She was hurt but survived.

I seldom, if ever, follow in the track of any truck hauling a load of any kind -- don't want to get the 3rd strike.

[Pilgrim]

Two jet skis running tandem down I-5.

 

Summer of 2001 (going to Gleno's for Tech Daze Prime, as I recall) on I-5 near Wilsonville, Oregon. One of those hot-rod Chevv Super Sport pickup trucks (well, "hot" for a Chevvy, anyway, which ain't much, but enough in this case) came down an entrance ramp pulling a trailer with two jet skis on it.

 

He performed a safe merge in front of me, but then decided to make it into a hole in traffic coming up in the fast lane.

 

So he nailed the throttle and cut sharply left into the lane, then sharp right to line up in it, at which point he pulled the trailer right out from under the jet skis. They hit the road in tandem with a slight angle to the left and ran fifty or sixty yards on their keels before they went off the road. The one on the left hit the first support in the median for the underpass, and the other one hit the next post. They both exploded in a shower of fiberglass and aluminum, but no big pieces came back in the road, thank Heaven.

 

The driver never apparently didn't notice until the car ahead of me pulled up beside him and made frantic motions back at the trailer. He made it off at the next exit. I can only guess what he did then.

 

And some years back, probably in the late '80s, I read about (but didn't see) a pallet of Sidewinder missles that fell out of a truck on I-25 down around Colorado Springs.

 

http://www.wildwestcycle.com/f_tips.html#ride

 

Pilgrim

[Wooster]

What are some of the strangest items you have had to swerve, dodge, etc. on a street or highway.

 

So, what have you seen?

 

While not at all strange, this is the season for rocks on the roadway. Something about nite time freezing and warm sunny mornings cause rocky mtn hillsides to let loose with rocks both large and small. In most cases they're softball size yet can be huge. Several years back, a trailways bus was hit and pushed off road into a ditch near Embudo NM. This resulted in a number of deaths.

Our chosen pastime is dangerous. We ride roads fraught with peril.

 

Realistic Wooster

[Kitsap]

The distance from the ground of a standing racoon's head is similar to the height of the chrome bumper of a 1970's 4X4 Ford pickup truck. They don't make bumbers like that anymore.

[BULLman]

A Wheel Barrow!

 

Traveling on a four land rd, wheel barrow flies out of back of pick up. Luckily, it bounces to the outside lane instead of the inside lane

 

Always look at the back of trucks at what could possibly be in the way of my front tire

[Silver Surfer/AKAButters]

It's a toss up between the portable cement mixer that came loose from the back of the pick-up in front of me on the freeway doing about 75, easy swerve around it, or the deer's butt 6 inches from the top of my windshield that I just missed. That one was late at night and I just caught her bounding out of the brush in my peripheral vision and grabbed a handful. Braking skills really paid off on that night.

[Husker Red]

The Stars and Bars!

 

I was riding in North Georgia and a ol' beater pick-up pulled onto the highway in front of me with two huge confederate flags on wooden poles in the bed. I backed off because this smelled like trouble. Sure enough as soon as they hit highway speed one of the flags and pole came flying off the back.

[St_Louis_Don]

The Stars and Bars!

 

I was riding in North Georgia and a ol' beater pick-up pulled onto the highway in front of me with two huge confederate flags on wooden poles in the bed. I backed off because this smelled like trouble. Sure enough as soon as they hit highway speed one of the flags and pole came flying off the back.

 

So...did you stop, pick it up, and lash it to the back of the RT?

[Husker Red]

There were a couple of guys in the back, so they knew they lost it right away and turned around to get it.

 

I rekon it might be a bit of poetic justice to see the confederate flag wiping out a damn yankee on his yuppie import motorcycle.

[Lineareagle]

I'd say for me it was a body AND a motorcycle. It was on the Caraterra del Sangre in Pucallpa, Peru.

 

The guy had just hit a little kid and had gone down. Some sliding, breaking and luck permitted me to get around both without dropping the Honda 250 I was on.

 

Hmm oh ya the other was the next day on the same road. The body of the little boy was still on the road covered in newspapers. I had lots of time to steer clear as there was a group of kids keeping the vultures away from it with sticks.

 

From my, and I assume our perspective, tragic.

From theirs life as they know it.

 

Haven't thought of THAT for a long time.