Alert reader Joe G has a question about stuff flying off trucks:

I unfortunately again this week found myself the victim of a shower of errant sand and pebbles from a gravel-hauling truck, and although my encounter with it was only fleeting, it has left a continual reminder in the form of a circular chip in my otherwise beautiful windshield.

I wasn’t tailgating, I wasn’t even going in the same direction, so I certainly don’t think it was my fault. But, if I did a u-turn to chase down the truck for a license plate number, etc., I probably would have gotten pelted with much more. And even if I had succeeded, I don’t know that it would have ever resulted in getting my windshield fixed.

So even though it’s too late for me, my question for the thread would be… Are haulers responsible for this kind of damage? Are they required to cover loads that are prone to being blown around? A co-worker of mine saw a motorcyclist get sandblasted in a similar way this past week as well, so it’s certainly a safety issue. Probably a question for the state patrol, but maybe others have some insight.

Roadguy was planning to call a state trooper about this on Thursday, but my colleagues were already tying up the State Patrol’s phone lines because of this story about the latest teen driving tragedy. If things ease up today, I’ll see what I can find out. In the meantime, please add your knowledge, thoughts and ventings below.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 6:05 am and is filed under Main, Scenes and stories, WUWT?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.