# Shoes on the road! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2004, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583 "2004-07-30T12:44:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ultracat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f17d59/32.png) [@ultracat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultracat)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/1 "2004-07-30T12:44:22Z")
Often times, when viewing pictures of an accident scene in the newspaper or on TV, one often sees shoes on the road. My question, why do people blow! out of their shoes? Impact makes sense, but why don’t the shoes go with the one unfortunately propelled? ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/2 "2004-07-30T13:03:29Z")
I’ve never noticed what you describe as a general phenomenon, HOWEVER. . . I was thrown from a car that went off the road at roughly 65 mph once. #1: I have no idea how I left the car. #2: I had no shoes on. I have a “blank” spot between when the car started to flip and when I realized “I’m laying on the ground with no shoes on and I’m not really hurt”. So, I couldn’t even begin to tell you how they came off. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/3 "2004-07-30T13:20:24Z")
If there are leg injuries, paramedics will sometimes remove shoes. I don’t suppose they’d be quite as concerned over the tidying up as they are over the welfare of the patient. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/4 "2004-07-30T13:22:51Z")
Also, here’s a [recent thread on the topic](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=266165), although it didn’t get many replies. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/5 "2004-07-30T13:27:06Z")
It’s not as if your shoes are really on your feet all that tightly anyway. In most cases you could reach down and pull off one or both of your shoes without too much effort. Being in an accident involving a moving automobile, much greater forces than your arm muscles are effecting you, and your shoes. Besides, shoes coming off isn’t the big thing here. Haven’t you ever heard the expression “Knock your socks off”? Now that’s an accident… ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/6 "2004-07-30T16:19:19Z")
I don’t know if they’re there as a result of accidents, or road ragers hurling them at each other, but man-oh-man do I see a lot of shoes lying along the side of the highways up here in the TC. You could make a kids’ travel game out of it. ---
**Author:** ![quiltguy154](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ad7895/32.png) [@quiltguy154](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quiltguy154)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/7 "2004-07-30T19:10:37Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > You could make a kids’ travel game out of it. **That is** the kid’s travel game! Whodja’ think is tossin’ 'em out by the side of the road? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Trigonal\_Planar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/0ea827/32.png) [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/8 "2004-07-30T19:44:59Z")
What I find unusual is when you find a single shoe. How does that happen? Wouldn’t you notice one is missing and make an attempt at finding the other? What manner of circumstance could exist that would result in the unknown loss of a single show along a highway? ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/9 "2004-07-30T20:00:23Z")
Maybe someone thought they’d lost a shoe and so they threw the other one out since there was no sense in keeping just a single shoe. Then they found the second shoe and, knowing the other one was gone they threw the second one out too. Then they think their SO has lost a shoe too and so they throw his/her shoe out. Then later… ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/10 "2004-07-30T21:26:17Z")
I was sitting at a red light once, and an old truck was turning left in front of me. In the back were two dogs. As the truck started to go through the intersection, I noticed that one dog had a shoe in his mouth, and was hanging it over the side of the truck’s bed. He dropped it in the intersection. Undeterred, he went back into the bed and came out with the shoe’s mate, then dropped it in the same intersection. The truck drove on. ---
**Author:** ![Chastain86](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Chastain86](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chastain86)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoes-on-the-road/257583/11 "2004-07-30T21:40:36Z")
Apropos of nothing, I see a lot of passengers these days with their left foot propped up on the open window as the car tools down the highway. I imagine a lot of shoe-displacement mishaps begin this way. And as long as we’re on this hijacked bus, were you people raised in a barn? I don’t want to see your stank-ass feet while I’m driving. Keep those tootsies in the car, for God’s sake.