Motorway Detritus....

[Bowler]

Just wondered what PHers have seen on the motorways of Britain that makes you think

Doing 20k PA, mainly on the fast roads, in the last few years I’ve seen

• Bike rack (2 up) on the hard shoulder. A mile further on there’s a woman, outside her car....

• Half a rear windscreen and a lot of glass bits. Half a mile on is a TVR...

• Half a front brake disc, in the middle lane..... fk me!

• A coil spring in the central reservation.

Do your best!

[emicen]

The metal pole complete with screws that hold on a truck's mudguard. Mudguard at the side of the road and nowhere to swerve. Cost me an alloy and a tyre that one.

[littlebasher]

Ladders, more times than i care to remember

And once, one of those steel wheels that's attached to the front prop of a unhitched articulated trailer. Made a right mess of a wheel when i drove over it.

Also seen a mountain bike and on two occasions (within 10 days of each other) a body.

[Mr AJ]

On the way home tonight on an unlit stretch of motorway caught up with an astra sitting at 80 in L2 despite there being no vehicles other than me and her - When i got level she had the interior light on and was reading a magazine on the steering wheel!

If we're talking purely objects, Just a pair of ladders flying off the roof of a van straight at me!. Which i guess we are given the thread title which i should have read properly. Sorry, Long day!

Edited by Mr AJ on Wednesday 24th October 22:37

[craigjm]

A pile of black packing crates (the sort of things they put bread in) in the 3rd lane of the M6 toll in the dark. Made a nice mess of my car I had at the time!

[Willeh85]

I've seen:

• a whole pallet with some cargo left on
• a few builders hard hats
• a whole rear bumper
• numerous cargo straps
• a few fallen trees in bad weather on A roads
• a scaffold poll thankfully it was on the side and in line with the road and not across it
• some form of huge metal pipe like 60feet+ long across the whole road on a bend and then a lorry parked up a few hundred yards down the road
• a dead deer (and a big one at that) middle lane of the motorway
• and probably the most shocking a man walking down the central reservation of the M1 middle of the day on the CAR SIDE of the barrier. No broken down cars in sight and 3 miles either way to the nearest junction or services.

[lexusboy]

A van in the middle lane, on its roof, facing the wrong way

[lexusboy]

A van in the middle lane, on its roof, facing the wrong way

[anonymous-user]

A vulcan bomber being transported north on the M40 with the wings clipped. It covered 2 lanes and partial on the hard shoulder. When I passed it I had a vulcan in my rear view mirror... a bloody vulcan in my rear view mirror! It was fantastic

[miniman]

A body, in the inside lane, just next to a car in the hard shoulder with a flat tyre.

Not quite "detritus", I'll admit. Be careful out there...

[LHD]

That was from a large rock falling off a skip lorry.

The dent in the roof that it also caused was a PITA to fix.

[jjones]

alternator in the "fast" lane luckily in the middle of the lane

upturned shopping trolley inside lane of dual carriageway at night, luckily no one in outside lane so a controlled swerve was possible.

[warp9]

- a large roll of carpet. scarey at 5am in the early morning gloom.
- lots of melons (organic ones!) from an overloaded Mexican van in south Cali.

[funkyrobot]

Car in a tree.

Smart car upside down and in pieces.

Was passed once by a K reg 3 Series that promptly went up in smoke.

A few cars on fire.

[northwest monkey]

Plenty of pop bottles half filled with "orange"

Sat in traffic one morning on the M60 heading into Manchester, I look to my right & there is the biggest dildo I'd ever seen. I'm not talking "quite big" here - this thing was huge. The mind boggles as to how it got there & why

[carreauchompeur]

Saw Air Crash Investigation last night covering the Taipei disaster when a 747 went to take off on a closed runway and hit a JCB...

Ouch

[Steameh]

miniman said:

A body, in the inside lane, just next to a car in the hard shoulder with a flat tyre.

Not quite "detritus", I'll admit. Be careful out there...

Must be a horrible site, had anyone stopped?

[Megaflow]

A dead dog, quite a size too, in lane 3 of 4 on the M6 just after the M42 southbound.

It appeared to be a black lab.

[14-7]

Plastic ball shaped heavy thing that was flung up from the car in front (no damage to car luckily but made a hell of a bang when it bounced off my roof).

Metal reinforcing bar that punctured my front bumper, aircon radiator and normal radiator (nice £800 repair bill).

Truck tyre coming across the carriageway at probably 100mph (my speed plus that of the tyre coming at me from the opposite carriageway, missed me though).

Several pairs of ladders, a spare wheel, tool box, numerous cocks in cars that can't stay in a straight line so spin out for no apparent reason (normally when it's raining but probably too busy on their phone whilst driving within a few metres of the car in front).

It all seems fairly mundane stuff really in my normal course of about 200 miles a day, 5-6 days a week, amazing how you get used to stuff.

[Z4monster]

Was going up the M62 a few years ago when I spotted something in lane 1 not moving. Luckily the road wasn't busy so I managed a quick move into lane 2.

As I got closer, I could make out it was a pallet with a wooden crate on the top. Closer still and the damn thing was full of random stone pieces.


As I passed it I noticed a flat back wagon reversing on the hard shoulder along with a guy walking back towards the lost load.

I don't know how they expected to pick it back as it was obviously very heavy.

What I never understood was how it got there. Even if it bounced off the back, it was completely whole and in one piece and upright. No smahsed wood or bits of stone around it.

Amazing really but it would have hurt to hit that one at 70mph.