This morning while traveling at about 55 mph on the Beach Line HWY near Cocoa Beach, a truck was pulling a large enclosed trailer about 50 yds ahead of me with one car ahead of me. There was a 4x8 sheet of about 1/2" plywood unsecured on top of the trailer. It flew off striking the car ahead of me sending the plywood high into the air and down into my windshield on the right side. Because it hit flat against the windshield in which there was obviously an air cushion between the windshield and the plywood, when we examined our Prius it was not scratched, dented or damaged in any way. This potential accident was unavoidable in that it happened so fast. Even though the truck was moving slow, only an idiot would be so unresponsible. So you can expect anything to ocur on the highway. Perhaps you will live to tell about it as I have or perhaps you will not. A guy behind us driving a Harley, not wearing a helmet, missed this airbourne plywood by seconds, so he was a very lucky man.
Wow.. you were extremely fortunate! I absolutely hate driving behind trailers and dump-trucks and go out of my way to avoid that situation whenever I can. It kills my mpg stats sometimes, but it's better than the alternative..
I have seen a truck on an overpass lost a wooden enclosure of some sort from the wind, and it flew down below the overpass.
No, we couldnt see the trucks plate and there was none visable on the trailer. Usually the cops are giving out traffic tickets in this area to girls in sports cars but on this day at this time we didn't see any going or coming each way. We were just relieved to get through this scare with no damage and put distance between us and this manure vendor.
Many years ago I was behind a pickup truck on one of the bridges going into Philadelphia. The bed liner was not secured and you could see it rising. The obvious solution was to back off. After a few rises it caught enough wind to lift completely out of the bed and flew into the Delaware River. On my trip to Kentucky I got behind a garbage truck going 70mph jettisoning cardboard boxes out of the top. Dodging flying, bouncing boxes annoyed me enough to tuck in behind him & hit the Safety Connect button. I gave the operator the name of the carrier, their truck number, and the license plate number. I presume (or would like to believe) the state police ran through or past the garbage on the road and had an interesting conversation with the driver. Always try to leave enough space around so that if sh!t happens, it doesn't happen to you.
55mph = 26 8/9 yd/s 55mph * 2s = 53 7/9 yds And there was another car in the 50 yards between them and the trailer. 2 seconds is typical human reaction time. I suspect that falling debris is already traveling more slowly than the vehicle and slows down rapidly so you really want to be farther back when following something that could spill load.
