Sunday, January 13, 2008

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.

4 comments:

chuck b. said...

A mow & blow crew's shovel once blew off their truck in front of me on the freeway. I had visions of catastrophe, but quick reflexes saved the day.

I also hate it when trash blows out of peoples' truck beds. I wish I could pick it all up and hand it to them when they park.

hangarcafe_justin said...

i agree! i had a close call a couple of years of ago when someome was hauling rocks and dirt with a tarp kind on top (not really doing much though) when suddenly a huge rock fell off the truck and headed for my car. luckily i swerved in time and it didn't hit me and went off the side of the road.
when will people learn??

Anonymous said...

This summer, we had an entire commercial refrigeration unit fall right in front of us. Scared the shit out of us, but we were fine!

NoneoftheAbove said...

PSA #2

A house on Dawson between 15th & 16th was robbed early on Monday morning.

The yellowish green one on the south side of the street.