A box blows off a pickup into the road- swerve or smash?
Poll: A box blows off a pickup into the road- swerve or smash?
Total Members Polled: 198
Discussion
You're following a pickup at 65mph, leaving just under a 2 second gap, down a relatively busy dual carriageway. A large cardboard box which isn't secured is blown from the back of the pickup onto the road infront of you. So what do you do?
ETA- could a mod change the 'An' to 'A' in the title please. Thankyou!
ETA- could a mod change the 'An' to 'A' in the title please. Thankyou!
Edited by busta on Thursday 20th January 19:52
busta said:
Well the reason I did mention it was a friend wrote off their car swerving to avoid a box that blew off a pickup. My immediate thoughts where nothing light enough to blow off a pickup is going to do much damage if you hit it head on.
But would you think that as it blew off?FraserLFA said:
busta said:
Well the reason I did mention it was a friend wrote off their car swerving to avoid a box that blew off a pickup. My immediate thoughts where nothing light enough to blow off a pickup is going to do much damage if you hit it head on.
But would you think that as it blew off?
Had a similar situation actually happen in the US a couple of years back - was driving on the highway in a rented Jeep Cherokee(thankfully!) and boxed in both sides, when I saw something appear in my lane from a pick-up ahead of me - a full double divan bed base!
I had nowhere to go (and was in a hire car!) - so didn't change my course and hit it doing about 75mph. There was a big crunch, the sound of stuff hitting the underside of the car, followed by an explosion of shattered timber and fabric in my rear view mirror (which thankfully was avoided by everyone behind me, who had seen my predicament and slowed!). I thought there would be damage to the underside of the jeep, so stopped immediately, and to my surprise it was unmarked.
I think in that situation if I'd have braked or swerved I'd have either hit someone else or been too abrupt and risked a roll - and I broke up the debris for those behind me! If I'd been in a normal car, with less ground clearance, I think avoiding action would have been wise, otherwise I reckon serious damage would have resulted.
I had nowhere to go (and was in a hire car!) - so didn't change my course and hit it doing about 75mph. There was a big crunch, the sound of stuff hitting the underside of the car, followed by an explosion of shattered timber and fabric in my rear view mirror (which thankfully was avoided by everyone behind me, who had seen my predicament and slowed!). I thought there would be damage to the underside of the jeep, so stopped immediately, and to my surprise it was unmarked.
I think in that situation if I'd have braked or swerved I'd have either hit someone else or been too abrupt and risked a roll - and I broke up the debris for those behind me! If I'd been in a normal car, with less ground clearance, I think avoiding action would have been wise, otherwise I reckon serious damage would have resulted.
Automatic reaction would be to swerve around it. However, the correct answer should be to hit it.
Swerving is likely to cuase a bigger accident that hitting it, as if it is light enough to blow off the back of a pick up, it's unlikely to do much damage to the car if you hit it.
I wonder how you'd stand with claiming off the insurance of a truck who dropped something in the road like that.
Swerving is likely to cuase a bigger accident that hitting it, as if it is light enough to blow off the back of a pick up, it's unlikely to do much damage to the car if you hit it.
I wonder how you'd stand with claiming off the insurance of a truck who dropped something in the road like that.
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