slofox
16th May 2011, 15:16
Last evening lilfox and myself were returning from d'Auckland in her car, via the south-western motorway. Dark, lots of traffic (behaving in the usual insane Auckland manner) and the rain is pissisting down. So bad conditions.
Heading south over the Mangere Bridge bit in one of the middle lanes when a van in the lane to my right suddenly swerved. I wondered why. Soon found out. There was a huge piece of truck tyre lying across both lanes. Barely visible in the dark and the wet. By the time I saw it I was almost on it. I couldn't move left to avoid it because there was a car right beside us. So I had no option but to run over it. I didn't know what it was and was expecting the worst. Made a pretty loud thump but other than that, nothing serious.
BUT. Had I been on the bike, things could have been pretty serious. The piece of tyre was damn big - big enough to tip a bike if happened upon unexpectedly.
Which brings me to my point. It seems to me that if a truck tyre goes bang like that, the bits ought to be removed from the carriageway. Is it possible that the truckie didn't notice? I mean I don't drive trucks so I wouldn't know. But just leaving it there seemed to me like inviting disaster for some poor bugger. I saw another piece of what might have been the same tyre several clicks down the line but it was off the shoulder of the carriageway so posed no danger.
I wanted to call *555 to warn of it but 'erself seemed to think it wasn't necessary to do so. If I hadn't have been driving I most definitely would've called it in.
Heading south over the Mangere Bridge bit in one of the middle lanes when a van in the lane to my right suddenly swerved. I wondered why. Soon found out. There was a huge piece of truck tyre lying across both lanes. Barely visible in the dark and the wet. By the time I saw it I was almost on it. I couldn't move left to avoid it because there was a car right beside us. So I had no option but to run over it. I didn't know what it was and was expecting the worst. Made a pretty loud thump but other than that, nothing serious.
BUT. Had I been on the bike, things could have been pretty serious. The piece of tyre was damn big - big enough to tip a bike if happened upon unexpectedly.
Which brings me to my point. It seems to me that if a truck tyre goes bang like that, the bits ought to be removed from the carriageway. Is it possible that the truckie didn't notice? I mean I don't drive trucks so I wouldn't know. But just leaving it there seemed to me like inviting disaster for some poor bugger. I saw another piece of what might have been the same tyre several clicks down the line but it was off the shoulder of the carriageway so posed no danger.
I wanted to call *555 to warn of it but 'erself seemed to think it wasn't necessary to do so. If I hadn't have been driving I most definitely would've called it in.