Public Service Announcement

Today's Seattle Times has a cover story on Maria Federici, a woman who lost her sight and most of her face four years ago when her car was struck by a board that flew out of someone's unsecured U-Haul truck. Since then, the state has passed "Maria's Law," which made it a crime to carry an unsecured load.

Jesus Christ, people. I don't ask much of you, but before you get on the interstate, please tie down all that loose crap in the backs of your pickup trucks.

Yesterday I was driving north on I-5, and suddenly in front of me, there were these 8-foot-long sections of pipe bouncing up and down, like 10 feet into the air. Lucky for me, they settled down before I got up to them, but I still had to swerve wildly on the wet pavement to avoid running over them at 60 miles per hour. I somehow came out fine, but I swear to God, I was just seconds away from having that shit come right through my windshield.

I don't know if they came from an unsecured load in one of the zillion Saturday afternoon pickup trucks on the road ahead of me, or if they came from an unsecured load from a vehicle on the overpass above me (it must have been the latter, given the height of the bouncing), but it's clear to me that Maria's Law isn't really working.