When driving stuff ends up on the road, either something falls off a truck or a tire explodes, boxes fall out. When I am driving I usually see these items on the shoulders like someone had stopped to move them over. If they are on the road, cars have to swerve to avoid them.
So who does the task of taking all that debris and moving it to the shoulder? Is that a mandatory police job requirement, or just something they can do but don’t have to? Does anyone else do this? What about roads where there is tons of traffic (rush hour on a busy interstate), how would a cop or someone be able to stop and move the debris without being hit?
If it’s something that is large enough on the interstate, or that people would swerve around, or would otherwise cause a hazard, the state troopers pick up, so it usually doesn’t remain on the road for more than an hour or two. I’ve seen them doing it.
As jturr88 said, the cops (or whatever official is patrolling the area) pulls it off to the side. I asked a trucker what happens when he shreds a tire and he said he just leaves it, it’s way to dangerous to go playing frogger on the freeway. Whether or not he calls the local police, I don’t know. After it’s on the side of the road, I’d guess the cops would call a city worker to pick it up, probably the same people the pick up roadkill.
For accidents on surface roads, the cops I know keep brown paper bags and brooms and dust pans in their trunks to get all the glass and debris picked up after an accident.
A couple of years back, my wife was driving on the freeway here in San Diego, and on the ramp between the 5 and the 8 she narrowly avoided a wheeled hand-trolley that was right in the middle of one of the lanes.
She called me from the car, and asked me to call someone about it. I called 911, because i figured that it was pretty damn dangerous. The city 911 operator put me straight through to the California Highway Patrol, and they thanked me for calling and said they would send a car out to deal with it.
Edit:
I’m amazed at some of the shit that makes it onto the freeways here in Southern California. In LA and San Diego i’ve seen boogie boards, surfboards, filing cabinets, mattresses, couches, and a whole variety of smaller junk.
An ex-coworker of mine lived on the outside curve of a freeway, about a hundred feet away or so. Every spring when she dug up her garden she’d find all kinds of crap (and in her lawn too). Lug nuts, exhaust parts, hub caps, brake light lenses, the occasional entire semi truck.
We were in convoy on a river trip, my buddy behind me was in a rollover collision. There was his SUV and parts of the semi all over the road. The State Troopers simply asked the stranded motorists to remove the debris and stack it up, so they could reopen the road.
On interstates, I’ve seen maintenance crews in dump trucks or pickup truck crawling down the shoulders with amber lights flashing picking up gators (truck tire remains) and other road debris. If a semi blows a tire, it’s going to take him at least a half mile to come to a stop on the shoulder. The driver is NOT going to be interested in walking back a half mile, walking out on the pavement to grab the gator and drag it to the shoulder, and then walk back to his rig.
In southern California I have seen a couple of time highway patrol run a traffic break. This is where a police car turn on their lights and swerves from one edge of the freeway to the other edge going slowly to slow down traffic. Then another police car goes ahead of that traffic break to move the debris off to the shoulder. This seems to work out pretty well you only need about 30 seconds of no traffic to chuck things off the the side of the road where it can be picked up later without becoming a hazard to traffic.
Occasionally, in extreme circumstances maybe, and/or immediately after an accident , but it is not what happens (at least not in Milwaukee County which is why I responded to Joeys post specifically).
A call is put in to dispatch and there is a special crew that the county sends out to clear the stuff. There is an agreement with Milwaukee County and the Wisconsin State Patrol and they don’t actively enforce the highway here (they do but they don’t). So their call goes to the county too.
I was driving on 94E in San Diego one day and saw a big sofa on the side of the road. There was a guy sitting on it, talking on his phone :eek:.
Sometimes it’s almost like traffic announcers get a kick out of it: “There appears to be an ironing board and two bowling balls in the number 3 lane, so keep an eye out for that. Back to you, Gustavo.”
Everyplace I’ve lived the cops or sheriff or highway patrol will respond promptly when called to remove significant debris from a traffic lane into the shoulder. And every couple weeks a road crew comes through with a dump truck and polices up all the accumulated debris along the shoulders.
About 2 weeks ago I called the Florida Highway Patrol about an ottoman in the #2 lane of I-95 near my place. The dispatcher thanked me for making the call. I didn’t wait around to see how they resolved it.
There’s a blog that I read that’s written by an funeral director in a small town in North Carolina, I believe. I can’t find a link now, but I know he’s written about hearses transporting corpses where the coffin or door wasn’t latched, and the contents spilled out onto the road. :eek: I’m guessing the driver would not wait for the police to show up, he’d probably try to take care of things himself . . . quickly.
Do truckers even know when they lose a gator? It seems to me they only occur when a paired set of wheels blows one tire, which fairly quickly disintegrates from centrifugal force, leaving the fellow tire intact and carrying the load. If it’s way back on the trailer, does the driver know when it happens?
I do! If I’m out riding my bicycle and see something dangerous to either cars or bicyclists. I’ll often get off the bike and throw the item off the side of the road. I make sure it’s safe before I do so.
The biggest was a large aluminum ladder. I’ve moved plenty of pieces of wood like 2"x4"s; retreads off of trucks; bricks and rocks; cardboard boxes; and car parts such as exhaust systems.
Even if you realize you’ve lost something as it happens, by the time you stop, backup/turn around, reload/remove the object, you’d have a few minutes go by. Enough time for another vehicle to hit said object, or, in this case take a picture. :eek: :smack:
I would suspect that in some states, the DOT would hire local city contractors to remove debris, unless it was a large amount. A cop might remove a piece of tree limb, a rock, or a shredded tire, but anything more could require a crew and equipment. We got stopped on our last trip while DOT loaders removed a significant rock slide out of the way.
I was hoping someone would describe how dead deer and other animal carcasses are disposed of? Does a trooper carry a shovel in hi scar? I hope they just bury them, because they must be pretty ripe after awhile.
