Dashboard Confidential – February 2021

I have found a new way to supplement my income, and it has been staring me in the face for years. Trash to treasures, the number of things I see on the road and roadside seem never-ending. And most of it is due to lack of good securement. Or commonsense.

I see a small fortune in those little web ratchet straps. First, there is the strap with a hook and a few miles further, there is the other half with the ratchet. I watch for the cargo that is no longer secured to be lying in the travel lane or on the shoulder and sometimes, there it is. Slightly scuffed or worse.

I have seen countless slide-out drawers from dressers and cabinets on the shoulder and then, another drawer, then another. Several miles later, there is the whole dresser, crashed into splinters on the side. Does the pickup truck driver not see anything in the rearview mirrors? I wonder if his marriage is intact after coming home without Grandma’s antique dresser.

North of San Diego, I witnessed a pickup truck, weaving from lane to lane. Nothing new there, but these guys had an unsecured refrigerator standing up in the back. At least it was until the driver jerked the wheel and crossed into my lane, dumping the new fridge out the back. It proceeded to skate and turn across several lanes and headed straight for my bumper and stopped just as I got into the center lane. Missed it by inches, but the two dummies in the pickup stopped in the travel lane and ran back to get what was left of the unit. I hoped they survived their stupidity.

Of course, I have seen countless suitcases that have gone airborne from a car roof because of poor securement.

Cheap discount store bungee cords do not make the grade. If the dearly departed suitcases do not come apart on impact, they do after being mashed by a big rig. Then there is a mile-long trail of amusement park T-shirts and lost bloomers. Did no one in the car notice this? I can hear the conversation with the wife. “Honey? Where’s the suitcase with my PJ’s?”

Rolling up I-95 in Georgia, a motor home with a bicycle rack plugged into the trailer hitch was bobbing and weaving his way through traffic. Each bump shook the rack, which happened to have four very nice looking and expensive mountain bikes lashed on. A big jolt from a bridge expansion joint caused the whole rack of bikes to detach, and the whole shebang hit the highway. Within seconds, a container hauler with nowhere to go crunched all the bikes into expensive scrap metal. Several of us tried getting the RV driver’s attention, but he was oblivious. I would bet there were some unhappy campers when they made the next stop.

Hubcaps and lugnut covers are probably the easiest to spot, and I see a small fortune’s worth on the roadside. The bumpier the road, the more hubcaps and nut covers. I-40 across Arkansas comes to mind. I see an opportunity here. Secondhand nut covers for sale, cheap.

Probably the scariest episode was on I-44 in Missouri as I was rolling west.

A pickup towing a boat going east came up on stopped traffic because of a construction zone backup. Nailing the brakes hard, the unsecured 20-foot boat launched itself from the trailer and went over the roof of the pickup. Completely airborne, the boat came across the median and headed straight for my truck. It looked like a scene from a movie in slow motion. Fortunately, there was no car next to me as I tried to avoid it. But seriously, besides blind, dumb luck, how do you dodge a boat? I stopped, as did another truck driver, and the boat owner ran back to check it out. He was more worried about his boat than if he hurt anyone. I was neither sympathetic nor interested in pushing his boat.

My one securement issue with a happy ending was in Scottsdale, Ariz., after one of the big car auctions. Several of us were loading cars out back and a few yards away a motor home had just started rolling out slowly. The owners forgot that poochie was still tied to the back bumper. Although the camper was creeping along, poochie was working hard to keep up. One of my auction vehicles was a very tricked-out Harley chopper that was previously owned by rocker Tommy Lee. I fired that bike up and hit it hard to catch the camper. As I got alongside him, the driver must have thought I was nuts as I was yelling for him to stop. When they pulled over, I told them poochie was tied up out back, and the wife gave him a big what for. Poochie was OK but glad to be rescued.

Sometimes you just never know what you will see on the roadside. LL

Get more of Dave Sweetman’s Dashboard Confidential here.