The video has gone viral after receiving more than 600,000 hits but for a North Carolina (NC) woman, the day a wooden plank from the road smashed through her windscreen was the scariest of her life.
The woman was driving on a highway in Shelby, North Carolina (NC), when she saw two trucks — a flatbed and a truck towing a mobile trailer — holding up traffic, ahead of her, Wheels.ca reported. She described their actions earlier this month as a dangerous “game of cat and mouse” and pulled out her camera, hoping to report it to the police.
What happened next was recorded on video. A wooden 2 x 4 lying on the road was kicked up by the trailer and it smashed through the windshield of the driver’s Kia Sedona minivan, showering her dashboard with broken glass.
Police officers told her: “You almost filmed your own death.”
Fortunately the woman didn’t suffer any major injuries. She only received a small cut. But she was just inches away being seriously hurt by the high speed piece of lumber.
Although her YouTube video has become a hit on the internet, obstacles on the road should not be taken lightly. They can be a major hazard from drivers, who can end up seriously injured. In some cases the consequences have been fatal.
More commonly accidents involving objects on the road occur when drivers swerve to avoid them. In 2009 a pastor died in a fiery wreck caused by a van that swerved to hit a tire in the roadway in South Carolina (SC).
Recently a piece of debris was left on I-40 in Davie County, North Carolina, with fatal consequences. The object was a small metal disc, an object that would normally be innocuous. But with vehicles traveling 70 miles per hour and more, even a small object can be deadly. The disc was projected into the windshield of a passing SUV, struck the driver on the head and killed him.
These kind of accidents can lead to lawsuits if highway debris ends up on the roads due to an improperly loaded tractor-trailer or pickup truck. In many cases the driver has failed to tie his cargo down properly or secure it correctly. An estimated 90 deaths and 25,000 vehicle accidents a year are caused by debris on the road or by debris falling off of vehicles.
DM