Saw this in a Gold Wing Newsletter...
(Ghostly) Road Hazards by Lou Caspary
I know a San Diegan who was riding with 20 bikes somewhere. All 20 bikes went down and slid hundreds of feet on a 2” carpet of oil from an oil tanker truck. Many of us relax on the freeway.
“What can happen, just go straight, this is a piece of cake”. But sometimes, you might only have a millisecond to decide between the right and wrong move. And sometimes, only a gust of wind can save your life.
I will tell you about the most bizarre of hazards that I have ever seen – it just happened coming back from JBJ’s yesterday. Before I do, lets go over a short list of what I have seen on the freeways and roads over the years:
Armadillo (Texas)
Alligator (Key West)
Living room couch
Rake
Ladder
Mattress
Mother Turkey with 5 baby turkeys (Blue Ridge Parkway)
Black Bear (Idaho)
Moose (Canada)
Frogs, crabs and turtles
Overturned cars on fire
Thousands of onions from an overturned semi.
Once, all cars in the fast lane were hooked together like a NASCAR race, barely 10 feet between each car. In a flash, one car spun out, and ended up 180ş in the same lane, at a dead stop. Panic stops from all involved.
Other road hazards abound. Did you know that deer, cows and even squirrels are to blame for more than 26,000 injuries a year? Half were caused by hitting, half were caused from trying to avoid the animal. According to Motor Cyclist magazine, they have encountered:
Barbeques
Picnic Coolers
Chainsaw
2000 gallons of monkey excrement
A fullsize construction portable toilet in the middle of I15
But back to my most bizarre award. I was in the fast lane, southbound as the freeway curved left. No cars were ahead of me, but a SUV was behind. Then I saw it. 100 feet ahead of me was a 15’18’ tall plastic cover, the type that might be used to cover a couch from dust. It was about 56’ wide, and was STANDING UP in the wind, covering my lane. It was being moved around by car vortexes, AND SEEMED TO BE WAVING TO ME. If I moved right, it because, at 80 mph, I was closing on this ghostly apparition fast. It was only by pure luck that my left handlebar missed the thing by about a foot.
I can only imagine the outcome if it had covered, and then got dragged, by the front of the Goldwing. It would have enveloped me at 80 mph.
Because there is nothing to be learned from this experience, as you could live several more lifetimes and never see anything like this again, you have to remember: Look ahead. Even a 12 second forward scan will not help you all the time if the freeway bends left and you can only see 11 seconds ahead. Let’s be alert out there!
source:
www.gwrra-ca1f.org/news/Newsletters/2005_01.pdf
Pages: 1 
