Paint Dumped on the Road

[Nine17]

...and I managed to roll through it before I realized what it was. Over five gallons of latex house paint from a big paint bucket in the middle of the street at 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon. The good news is that my dear wife was waiting at the next light and went all ape ***** on me about the paint on my tires and the sides of my car. I spent the next hour getting it off my Porsche -- but I still need to put the car on a lift to really get at the undercarraige. That won't be free.

I called the local police dispatcher to find out who had dropped the paint. They had no report. There are layers of wrong here: Why don't people secure their loads any more? Is it unmanly? It seems like ladders and nails in the roadway are common these days. Next, why on earth couldn't the person who dropped the five-plus gallons of paint in the road stick around and wave people away from driving through it? It was a busy intersection and most drivers were looking at the other cars. Leaving the scene of an accident is morally and legally criminal. Then, could someone have used the cell phone they have screwed into their ear to report the incident and the license plate of the offender? Of course if they did, in our area 911 calls still seem to get routed to the Highway Patrol communications center 175 miles away and not to the local police who are the designated responders. Finally, there's the complete lack of personal responsibility or accountability (sort of like the Clintons or the Republicans claiming "Change"). Is the idea that I can "use my insurance" to get the car on the lift to detail the undercarrage? I'm on my own with the deductible and the rate increases. Just because I have the foresight to buy insurance doesn't let YOU off the hook if you make a mistake -- or even worse -- intentionally get house paint all over my car.

I suppose I'll get the response that housepainters with unsecured loads are invariably illegals. Illegals are likewise invariably hired by U.S. citizens who conveniently underpay them and then ignore their own legal and moral responsibility to hire Americans, while at the same time we deny illegals access to insurance because we pretend that they don't exist. A couple of years ago an unlicensed, uninsured, and undocumented person living and working in my town totalled my 8 week-old BMW with me in it and my uninsured motorist coverage had to take the whole hit. I'm subsidizing the crummy restaurant he works at.

People, please report incidents like this to your local police! You can ask them to keep your report confidential. I carry insurance so that I can take financial responsibility when I make a mistake, not to pay for other people's mistakes. This winds up costing us all.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Your incident is an inconvenience. Not all that long ago I had an "unsecured" igloo gatorade jug come loose off a "work truck" on the freeway at about 75 miles an hour. I was on my motorcycle behind. It's probably 90% luck and 10% skill that I'm alive today as a result. If I'd hit it, I can virtually guarantee I'd have lost control of the bike and probably been launched. Large, cylindrical objects in your path of travel doing freeway speeds on a motorcycle get your attention in a big hurry.

About a month ago I saw a semi-mangled aluminum ladder sitting in the left lane of the 22 freeway. Good thing I saw it well in advance and was in a different lane. Hit it in a car or truck - it's an inconvenience and some money. Hit such a thing on a motorcycle and you could very well be looking at a trip to the morgue.

Needless to say, I for one am VERY concerned about this - the general state of our roads and the amount of debris/crap that accumulates on them. Why the heck aren't all the gang bangers doing "community service" out picking up this stuff? God knows we've got enough of them.

And yes, I think a big part of the problem is illegals that don't care and treat the entire region as an extension of some third-world country/mentality where endless amounts of garbage are free to be thrown/deposited anywhere. That and the fact that people are unfathomably stupid/inconsiderate when it comes to vehicle operation.

Cripes there was a SOFA in lanes reported on KNX last week. What's next?

[Jagshund]

Oven in the road on I-285 here in ATL killed a man last year.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

I was once driving an S10 Blazer on the 101w near the 405. Cal Trans flatbed in front of me with some sort of panel box on the back, like 5ft sq. It flies off the flatbed, hits the grill of my truck, instantly slowing me from 75 to like 45mph, then flies OVER the cab. I still dont know how that happened. Just a total instant.

I pulled off the freeway and looked at the front of my truck, grill gone, radiator pushed back and leaking, bumper gone headlight smashed, other hanging. actually got it home. Called Cal Trans, filed a report, never heard anything more.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Oh, and goof off works well for the paint. that or kerosene. Done that before twice.

[911boost]

Be thankful it wasn't freshly painted yellow road paint. Yep, ask me how angry that got me.

Someone swerved into my lane and I hard to make a quick move to avoid them and I drove over about 8 feet of the fresh stuff. Holy crap was that hard to get off.

[IROC]

A friend of mine's parents hit a full 5-gallon bucket of paint while driving an M3. Caused thousands of dollars worth of damage by destroying the grill, radiator, etc. not to mention the paint damage...

[onewhippedpuppy]

I once lost a gallon of paint in the road, while driving one block between the hardware store and job. I was driving the truck slowly, but there was ice in the back (winter). Yeah, that's a major PITA to clean up. Something like 20 gallons of water later (carried in empty paint cans) it was just a faint stain in the road.

[legion]

I worked one summer as a house painter in college.

SOP at our shop if paint was spilled on the road was to stop the truck, try to cone off the affected area, call HQ, and call the police. Any cars that drove through the paint got a new paint job. (The painting company figured out this was cheaper than turning in a claim or haggling over how much needed repainting and having it go to court.)

Leaving paint on the road is irresponsible, but then again, the driver might not know it even happened.

[BReif61]

Originally Posted by legion

the driver might not know it even happened.

That's what I'm thinking probably happened.

[JeremyD]

I wish the police would spend more time ticketing the folks with unsecured loads, uncovered gravel trucks than 7 over in a 55.

[GothingNC]

My brother was behind a truck carrying vinyl siding and sheets of siding strtaed falling off the back of the truck. He avoided as much as he could but the ones he hit made his car slide like hitting an ice patch.

He pulled up next to the driver and at 65 MPH honking the horn and telling him that his load was falling off the truck. Driver just gave a blank stare in return and sped off. A few miles down the road he saw the truck at a light with an empty bed

I have managed to avoid a ladder spinning towards me while traveling 75 MPH in NM, I did not notice it at first until my wife started screaming. Semi behind me finished it off and luckily did not lose any tires.

Being in NC I have encountered paint barrels, couches, tires, fence posts...

[Dave L]

I had a wheel barrel full of gravel dump infront of me on the interstate in Michican. Luckily I wasnt tailgating and was able to hit the shoulder and avoid a nasty accident. Its scary out there be careful!

[legion]

Originally Posted by JeremyD

I wish the police would spend more time ticketing the folks with unsecured loads, uncovered gravel trucks than 7 over in a 55.

But it's so much quicker to make money for the PD by issuing speeding tickets.

[Nine17]

Originally Posted by legion

But it's so much quicker to make money for the PD by issuing speeding tickets.

I was waiting for that very irony as I took a drive in the hills to get the dry paint to flake off the tires! "But officer, with the rear weight bias I really need to push hard to work the front tires!" The good news is that latex paint comes off with a little elbow grease, although with a lowered car on 7's and 8's it's hard to get inside the wheel wells and at the undercarraige without a lift.

Of more concern (and what prompted this post) is when things like ladders and lumber spear through windshields, Igloo coolers knock down motorcycles, and even when fasteners cause sudden loss of tire pressure to a speeding car. This kind of accident is preventable; it's not an earthquake or a hurricane. What it takes is enforcement and citizens willing to report problems.

There is NO WAY that somebody didn't see this and couldn't make the driver aware of it -- it was at one of the busiest intersections in town right after some of the churches let out. My wife said that there were a few cars that got nailed a lot worse than mine, but the fire captain who came out to make sure that the mess wasn't toxic said that I was the only person who called police dispatch. It's the same cranial-rectal insertion that allowed Bear-Stearns and Fannie and Freddie to make reckless business decisions, skim the commissions, and leave the "insurance company" (the U.S. taxpayer) with the bill...

[legion]

Originally Posted by Nine17

It's the same cranial-rectal insertion that allowed Bear-Stearns and Fannie and Freddie to make reckless business decisions, skim the commissions, and leave the "insurance company" (the U.S. taxpayer) with the bill...

Careful, you might get this thread moved to the other forum...

[MichiganMat]

I nearly ran over a bookshelf in the middle of 880 yesterday with a newly painted fiberglass IROC bumper and aluminum splitter on my 911.

Retards.

[legion]

Back to when I worked as a painter...

There were two paint spill incidents I was away of all summer. In one the driver of a step van forget there was a 5-gallon drum of paint on his back bumper. He ended up retracing his steps until he found the spill. In the other, the driver of the step van hadn't secured the rear roll-up door as well as he thought. It opened when he was en-route and he stopped immediately.

[Heel n Toe]

It's baffling to me why painters or painters' helpers wouldn't want to take the time to secure buckets of paint in the back of a truck... if it turns over and spills, that's a loss. Paint isn't cheap. Plus, then you have to take the time to go back to buy paint to replace it.

Another thing that would help is to make it against the law to drive a pickup with the tailgate down. Maybe if you have a huge load of 10 ft. long lumber in there and it's well-secured somehow, but otherwise, the gate should be up.

Lots of yahoo's think that with the tailgate down, there's less wind resistance and they get better gas mileage. Somebody like Car & Driver or Road & Track did a wind tunnel study and it found that's not the case; having the gate up actually cuts down wind resistance by acting like a wicker bill... above 35 mph, it greatly reduces turbulence by trapping a bubble of air in the back of the bed, letting air flow smoothly over the tailgate.

I guess we should all try to get our state legislature to pass a law saying the gate should be up unless a certain type of load is being hauled.

One more consideration; even if the tailgate is up, a spilled 5-gallon bucket can leak out the lower corner of the bed.

Maybe a large enough fine for paint spilled on a roadway will get people's attention.

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by IROC

A friend of mine's parents hit a full 5-gallon bucket of paint while driving an M3. Caused thousands of dollars worth of damage by destroying the grill, radiator, etc. not to mention the paint damage...

my wife hit a bucket that fell off a truck by the Woodlands when we lived in TX, figured it had cement in it, two wheels and some suspension work is what that cost me. Definitely woud have killed a guy on a scoot