I was driving along the I-10 in Phoenix yesterday, and a semi kicked up a 4-foot pipe that was laying in the road. Luckily, I was in the process of changing lanes, otherwise, I might not be typing this now.

HOLY $h!T !!!

Damn, that could have really hurt! Any damage to the Xterra other than the windshield? Glad you weren't injured!

Damn.

Glad you're ok. That could have easily been fatal.

Thats crazy!!!

Did anyone stop to help??

x2.

But on a good note I like the texture of your X..

^^ X a zillion!

I'm glad you weren't hurt! What was the deal with that kind of debris in the road?

-G

Holy Crap!!! Glad you're ok, and I was bummed about kicking a rock into my backglass and shattering it this morning.

On my way home last night I had a truck tread kick up in front of me and tagged the left side of my front bumper and it made a bunch of noise, but I can't tell where it hit due to the pre-existing damages.



Note to self: Move X when you weed wack!

Now I have to start over with my stickers.

Damn dude! I am glad that you are ok.

On a positive note, if it happens again, you have some free sliders!

Holy Crap Ted. That's fricken lucky as hell that thing didn't take you out. Seen that kinda shit on TV, but never in real life. Glad you are ok.

Bummer about the rear window Adam. Got Glass Coverage on her I hope!

I see at least 2 ladders and a few chairs, bits of lumber and all sorts of crap here on the AZ Highways on my daily commute. Nobody here in AZ seems to know how to tie down a load.

Tire place showed us the rubbermade container full of stuff they have pulled out of peoples tires. Everything from 3ft long pry bars to circular saw blades. Neither of which I would like to see coming through my windshield.

WOW! 18" over and it would have gotten you. Glad you're alright ... and that looks like it will buff out.

Dang.

Just found out they'll be out between 12 and 5 to replace. No Deductable. Good thing for Insurance, just hope that this time I go more than a couple of days before it gets destroyed, as I had my windshield replaced and two days later it got hit and the star is larger than a quarter, not fixable, and smaller than a dollar, not replaceable. :rolleyes:

Really glad your ok Ted. That pipe looks like a piece of scaffolding. Any identifying markings on it?

Holy F##@k.....man, I am Glad you are OK...I saw something on the News the other day...some Lady was Injured big time by Debris on the Road...a Steel Pipe went thru her Jaw, and went out the other side of her Head....and Lived to talk about it....Wow !!!!

HOLY SHIT! That may be THE craziest thing I have ever seen.

Glad you are OK Ted, you gonna make it out to Box Canyon tomorrow...j/k...

Did you shit yourself when that came barrelling through the windshield at 60mph+?

WOW

Well I doubt she is really "talking" about it...

Wowzer man! Glad you're okay.

Yeah, I'm pretty lucky. It came flying at me end over end - something like you would see in the movies. After it hit, I got on the CB to bitch the driver out because I initially thought the pipe might have fallen off of his truck. He did pull over.

When the DPS (state police) officer arrived, he said there was nothing he could do because it was road debris. I asked him if it was OK for me to drive it, as I was heading to Tempe for a meeting. He said it was OK, just be careful that the glass doesn't fall in.

The X was still real muddy from the Fat Tire / Toys for Tots run last weekend. When I got to back to my office, I parked in front of the building. Security called it in as an abandoned vehicle, and I had to run out there before they hooked it to tow it away.

I got some really weird looks from people on my commute home. I guess most people don't see a really muddy X with a 4' pipe sticking out of the windshield very often.

The only damage I had was to the glass and a small scratch on the dashboard. However, when the pipe landed in the passengers seat, it cracked the case on my (work) laptop. Now the screen doesn't work, but I can hook it up to a regular monitor.

The pipe actually looks like some sort of tow bar. I'll bring it to the next AZXC meeting to show you guys.

The glass repair guy just left. I have full glass coverage, and I used Safelite Auto Glass. They are really good and really fast.

Bummer about your rear window Adam. I know how you feel...

I have to agree...Holy Shit! I have never seen something like that happen before.

Wow! Glad you're okay man.

Remember a few years ago here in Phoenix when that rock came off a semi on I-17 and took an old lady's head clean off. She was riding passenger to her husband.

Wow....

The closest thing I've had was following a vinyl siding truck and suddenly driving through what had to be, a whole house worth of siding as it came off the back of the truck.

Glad you are OK.

It's all been said Ted, just glad you're ok too.

I hear ya' buddy..

Hell Not once but twice this week i was near a truck when its tire went. The one today thankfully i was on the side of and it was the opposite side tire but wednesday I was behind one when it exploded and if it wasnt for my mad evassive driving skills I would have taken a full tire tread to the passanger side of my car at 70mph.

Holy Shit!!! That's crazy. I had to dodge a 2x4 once but goddamn! Glad you didn't have a passenger.

glad to see your ok..... people have died from such situations on our highways..its very important for us that might spot a piece of metal on the highways to call highway patrol asap when we spot such things. none of us would want to have a family member or friends encounter this type of danger on road trips..

Something similar happened to my bro's gf. A portion of a trucks leaf spring roughly 18" long got kicked up and broke through her windshield and landed in the passengers seat. That day we all came in from different directios so we all drove. Had the whole family been riding together... she woulda been gutted by the debris. Damage: broken windsheild, and ripped up seat/backrest.

CHP didn't let us drive her car home. They also told us that type of accident happens regularly with not so good outcomes.

Glad you were lucky.

Just a flesh wound

You are incredibly lucky! and/or it was obviously NOT your day to go! Wow! That is really scary! Ditto, glad you are okay! lj

Dude, I hope I never feel "your" pain and have that happen to us. The tire tread could have been worse, but good thing I was driving the X and not my Car.

I also used Safelite, got me done in less than a days notice.

Hope you can get your laptop fixed and I can't believe they would have towed your X in less than 48 hrs as that is the minimum time I can wait before towing abandoned vehicles at my work.

back in 2001 when my X was brand new, I hit some sheet metal and it took out my Step Rail.


When I was much younger, I was riding with my sister on I-880 and someone in front of her hit a pipe and sent it tumbling and it SPEARED her grill on her Oldsmobile. I remember being kinda scared, but still feeling safe inside the car.

While headed to Missouri on I-24 a year or so ago, we were about a quarter-mile behind an auto carrier full of new boat trailers. A wheel and tire fell off one of the top-most trailers and that thing had to have bounced 50 feet in the air. It bounced 2 or 3 times then rolled down an embankment. We got up next to the embankment and there had been a minor accident at the on-ramp below. The cop was standing there taking information from the drivers and the rogue wheel had rolled down the embankment and stopped right next to his cruiser.

I remember coming back from WI in I94 just north of Chicago there was a lady in an older VW golf in the lefft lane about 2-3 cars in front of us. Her front tire came lose along with the wheel. I bounced against the divider a few times while she was frantically trying to stop, and then it bounced over the divider, coming in contact with oncoming traffic creating breaking chaos and a minor pile-up.

There was this one time, I was driving a BMW and being a total dick, and I start tailgating this jerk in a white Xterra.

This idiot, he drives over a freakin' log in the middle of the freakin' road!
I was so far up his ass, I never saw the log until the last minute!
Tore up my airdam and ever'thing, man . . .

That Xterra guy . . . what a dick.

That goes back a good ways.....

Ouch.

YES IT DO...

I had one of these moments happen to me today.

I'm in the far left lane of a 3 lane highway. i decide to move into the middle lane and right after i check the blind spot and start making my move over, i look ahead and see a 4' by 4' or so piece of plywood come cartwheeling out of a truck that is in the middle lane a few car lengths ahead. after a quick swerve into the right lane, i watch it go by my window.

for doing about 70 the X handled it really well.

it was closer than i would have liked but accident avoided.

Glad to hear you are ok Ted. I have had several close calls with different things. But nothing ever came into the vehicle.

WOW! You should go buy a lottery ticket, Ted. A foot to the right and you'd be a hurtin.

I remember.

Ran over what appeared to be a tack strip for carpeting this morning, tailgater behind me almost got it in the windshield, hit his grill on a black 300. :rolleyes:

Damn....screw "tread Lightly" on the trails....You folks in AZ need that on the highway.

Dang, what's with all the road debris in PHX?

w.o.a.h

i don't know what it is with phoenixs highways, i live out in maricopa and they just scraped up the entire 347 going in and out of maricopa, had a duelly pick up a rock and actually carve away some of the glass on the passenger side, didn't crack it, just shaved it..glad you're alright man...no luck on ID'ing the 18wheeler?

The rediculous amount of road debris in PHX is due to the fact that we are one of the fastest growing areas of the country. Lots and lots of construction, and not all of the contruction folks tie their loads down properly.

Rocks on the road are also really common, as most people have "desert" (rocks) landscaping instead of lawns.

WOW

ladders are one of the most common chunks of road debris to avoid here. Why a contractor wants to lose a $150 ladder because he's too lazy to tie it down is beyond me.

Due to the heat, we get a lot of big gators too. (separated truck tire treads for those of you not familiar with trucker terms) it sucks when someone in front of you runs one of those over and flips it up on your hood.

And this site is educational as well as entertaining.....I learned a new term today.

A few years back heading to long beach a truck in front of me on the 710 loaded with crushed cars lost a hood off of one of them. I had to duck as it flew right over my head. At the time I was in my MG with no top and if I was car that was any higher it would of come through the windshield.

When I lived in az I was replacing windshields on average every 15k miles. I always waited till the 3rd or 4th major rock hit to change them out. AZ roads just plain suck.

Glad to hear that your ok. That is really scary. Back in 04 when ours was new we had the same thing happen to us but with a smaller pipe and it luckly hit sideways so it only shattered the glass. My mom was really shaken up because she was sitting in front of it. Again glad to hear your ok. Your really lucky.

Just in case anyone has any ideas about backing into a tree.



Note the Weed Wacker as cause!

The morning folks on KOOL FM, about the only radio station I listen to, have a white board and they note the stuff people see on the freeways. They gave up counting ladders because they had to many, they have some pretty weird stuff on there at times.

Amen on the ladders. I was towing a small trailer with a couch on it on I-10 when the truck in front of me hit a bump and it slid right off.

It kept sliding and stayed parallel with the flow of traffic so I just straddled it. Looked back and it had veered over to the shoulder. Well trained ladder.

holy crap man...that's freakin scary.
Glad no one was speared.

I haven't had any experiences like that in my X (knock on wood) but heading out to a job site in the company truck going eastbound on the 101 early in the morning while it was still dark I was in the middle lane and this old pickup in the right lane just ahead of me. His driver side rear wheel came off, brake drum slamed the ground sending out a trail of sparks, his tire passed him kept to the right, bounced over the wall and across an on ramp. I think it was around 56th street. Crazy.

Then heading up to Flagstaff a few years ago, all of a sudden a set of duely wheels from a semi came bouncing across the median from the southbound side. Crossed the northbound lanes just behind us.

Az-ted--Glad you dodged that bullet. But really, what is that brown stuff on your hood?

I-17 this week, one base to a jack stand, narrowly missed and one Who Knows What that I ran over after the persons in front of my shattered it into a million pieces. Of course they slam on the brakes and I do the same just in time to look in the Rear-view mirror to see a tanker truck coming up my ass fast. Gave it all the skinny pedal in my Cirrus 2.5L and got out of the way.

Going down Glendale at about 31st Ave a whole side of a tree was in the road and had no choice but to plow it over, thankfully I was driving the X. I think the city buss took it out first.

We'll see what's in store for me next week.

Copperlake, that brown stuff on my hood is called mud. (See the AZXC Fat Tire thread for more pics)



Conundrum, man, how much bad luck can one guy have?

I stopped asking that question as there seems to be an endless supply. :rolleyes:

There's always that siver lining right?

Bout 5 years ago I was west bound on I-10 in New Orleans slightly behind and beside a truck pulling a speedboat on a trailer. It was night and I couldn't help to notice the glow and shower of sparks emitting from the boat trailer axle/wheel area. Seems he hadn't greased his trailer bearings in a while. Well I immediately sped up to get his attention to let him know he had a big problem. I got his attention and he nodded and started to slow and try get to the shoulder of the road. The wheel failed on the trailer as he tried to get over to the shoulder. Sparks and chaos everywhere! The trailer dug in the road and eventually decoupled from his bumper, slewing to the right and trying to dump the boat on the road...thank god for safety chains. If that trailer had come totally loose and got sideways in traffic, I shudder to think of the consequences.

Well now I can add a little of my own.
No where near the pipe incident, but I took a full size tire/rim on the beeline during holiday traffic this weekend. Who knew an Xterra could jump a tire at 60mph.

I was in caravan formation behind two Jeeps and somehow, unbeknownst to me in the rear, there was a trie/rim combo sitting in our highway lane. All of a sudden I see the first Jeep, the only one who had a chance to see it, swerve crazily onto the shoulder, then the second Jeep, my sister's, swerve as much as she could (as she tried and failed to stradle it) and bounce around a little and then all of a sudden in my view, a tire/rim flies out from under the Jeep, pops up a little and flies right at the X. Luckily we were holding form pretty tight so it didn't have much of a chance to get high enough to come through the windshield. I had no time to do anything so I took it how it was served. It all happened so quickly, but I believe it hit the bottom of the bumper (just a tire print on the Shrockworks), went under, I jumped it too, and then there were a few fast jarring thumps from the undercarriage and then my side view mirror let me see it shoot out behind, bounce once and shoot up over the cars behind me. It bounced so high I lost it in the mirror until it bounced again on the shoulder and took off up the hilly road side.

I just knew something had to be busted, a wheel an arm, something. The lead Jeep knew it could be bad so he pulled over immediately and we followed. A little shook up we did an inspection for damage on the Jeep and the X but could visually see none.

Imagine if it had been a car, or if we had been further staggered. I guess, strangley enough, it was actually good that it was us.

Remember Adam, "Inside every silver lining, there's a dark cloud."

about four years ago, my tire fell off of my bronco II and bounced over a cement divider and into a small lake by my house. it put a nice flat spot in my front brake rotor. luckily no one was around. being it was march here in WA, i had to wait all day for the tire to float across the lake. when i put the spare on, it was flat and did not hold any air.