# Who moves debris off the road
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 18, 2014, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801 "2014-08-18T02:48:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2014, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801/21 "2014-08-18T20:00:27Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#):
>
> 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.
When I lived in MO we had lots of deer road kills on the highways. The state police / highway patrol would pull the carcass onto the shoulder if there was still enough in one piece to drag by a leg. A DOT crew with a dump truck would come by now and again and shovel the remains into the truck. I sometimes suspected they liked to wait a couple weeks hoping the vultures & such would do the job for them.
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### Author:  [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801/22 "2014-08-18T20:08:40Z")
I learned a new term today - I never knew those exploded tire bits were called anything. “Gators”. I like it. 🆒
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### Author:  [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2014, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801/23 "2014-08-18T20:54:47Z")
I think a large percentage of it isn’t ‘moved’ to the side of the road but rather stays in traffic until someone hits it over to the side of the road.
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### Author:  [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2014, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801/24 "2014-08-18T22:21:37Z")
Roadies.
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### Author:  [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801/25 "2014-08-18T22:50:27Z")
I hit a deer on an Arkansas two-lane. Called Game and Fish and they told me I could take it home. They were surprised when I declined.
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2014, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801/26 "2014-08-19T15:58:10Z")
Most of the small stuff just gets knocked to the side of the road over time by traffic. As a cyclist, I know this all too well…
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801/27 "2014-08-19T16:01:56Z")
Sometimes good Samaritans stop and help people move stuff that blows out of trucks and then they themselves get hit and killed:
> **[KHP: Former Winfield police chief was 'good Samaritan' killed on K-96 (VIDEO)](https://www.kansas.com/news/article1156859.html)**
>
> A 61-year-old El Dorado man who was struck and killed near K-96 and Rock Road on Monday afternoon has been identified.
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### Author:  [@PorchePine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PorchePine)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801/28 "2014-08-19T16:07:15Z")
> [@seal\_cleaner](#):
>
> I hit a deer on an Arkansas two-lane. Called Game and Fish and they told me I could take it home. They were surprised when I declined.
Waste of meat. Even as a vegetarian, I would have took it home for friends/family.
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### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-moves-debris-off-the-road/695801/29 "2014-08-20T01:36:34Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> 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?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There can be collateral damage when a tire on a rig blows. If a tire on a rear axle on a trailer goes, it’s probably going to damage the mud flap or the bracket that supports it, but still, a driver might not notice it until the next time he stops and does a walkaround. From my personal experience, an inside drive tire blew and put a hole in an air bag (air suspension). So I was getting low pressure readings on my air gauges on the dash. I didn’t know the airbag was holed when I pulled over to look at it, just that the tire was blown and I could hear air leaking. Luckily, I was just a few miles away from the truckstop I was planning to stop at for the evening anyway and I did have enough pressure to get there safely.
I called it in and they sent a service truck to replace the tire. He discovered the hole in the airbag, and of course, he didn’t have an airbag for a Volvo, so he managed to bypass the airline going to the airbag so my air pressure was good until I got to a place where I could get the airbag replaced and the airline unbypassed.
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