Originally posted by 98SVT:
Okay class, what's the rule?.....One car length per ten miles per hour? 
I like traveling at warp speed as well as everybody else but not enough gap between vehicles and too much speed difference between vehicles are the two biggest causes of accidents. I know it's hard to keep space between your vehicle and the one in front of you, especially here in the Los Angeles area. Someone always thinks you're leaving that gap for them to fill. :rolleyes: But it beats getting into an accident.
KarlYup! or the three second rule: leave a gap of three seconds between yourself and the car in front of you, using signs/landmarks to get an approximate measurement.
Nevertheless, i'm glad to hear you are ok.
A similar thing happened to my family and I back in January.
I went to a friends party in Oakland and my parents had gone to dinner in Oakland. The Raiders had just played the Jets (it was the first of their two meetings in Oakland) and it was about 11:15pm (meaning most of the Raiders fans had gone home).
My dad was driving our Nissan Maxima (we were all in the same car) and we were making our way back home and had just passed the Oakland colisieum. We were in the far right hand lane in a 4 lane highway going about 60mph. All of a sudden we noticed a white pickup truck in the far left hand lane going 90+mph, not too unusual. But then I noticed the back of the truck, sparks were flying out of the bed (not from the ground). Obviously, I thought that was a bit unusual.
Anyway, the guy is just tearing past us. Then suddenly, we notice something fly out of his bed and onto the road. Before a split second passed the object had traveled FOUR lanes to the right and hit our car head on in the grill. We pulled off to the side immediately...no one was hurt (well except the front end of our car). We called the police immediately. Of course the ***hole in the truck continued on his merry way (i wouldn't be surprised if he was drunk after the Raiders game...he had Raiders stickers on his car). This is when it got REAL SCARY.
We didn't knew what flew out the bed of the truck other than the fact that we knew it was metal and it was big. Well, there was debris all over the road, including the large object. Cars were runnning into it, sending them out of control...their tires/wheels were getting completely destroyed from running into whatever this object was. At least 6 cars ended up hitting it. The CHP finally got to the scene and blocked off the entire highway. One officer went and retrieved the object (he ended up needing some extra help)...IT ENDED UP BEING A 200lb FURNACE. Needless to say we felt lucky to be alive (if it caught any air before hitting us it could have come right throught the windshield and into the cabin).
The CHP then told all involved in the accident to meet on a sidestreet at the next exit (where it was safer and where we could discuss the details of the accident).
So we explain the whole thing to an officer and he comes back and tells us the following: "sir, now this may sound crazy, but you are 'at fault' hitting the furnace"
Needless to say, we were a bit stunned (understatement). This officer was a jack ass. I would understand his point if we were behind and following the truck (you are supposed to leave enough room to brake in time to come to a complete stop). What he didn't understand is that the driver is not responsible for objects that travel horizontally on the freeway. We told this to our insurance company, and frankly, they agreed that officer was a jack ass and were more than willing to cover us completely on this one.
Well a week and half later our car was back to normal.
Anyway, needless to say, I understand what you guys are saying about people with trucks who don't have a clue of how to haul their loads.
LOL! This is turning into one long ass story telling thread.
