Bricks!
I have always been cautious following vehicles with exposed tires. Hairline cracks or chips in the windshield are costly to fix, and can often escalate into a serious problem over time. Flying debris, however, can often be more serious than a small stone picked up by a tire.
I am in the right hand lane heading eastbound on NJ State Highway 46. Traffic speed in my lane is approximately 50 mph, with the center lane passing around 60. An open trailer passes me by, and after waiting a safe distance, I switch lanes behind him. Now I am between a Dodge Caravan and the truck. A Cadillac slowly passes me in the left hand lane. I switch over to the left lane to fall behind the Cadillac and overtake the truck.
The Cadillac makes an abrupt manuver, although I could not determine the motivating force. The Cadillac engages in hard acceleration and darts away. I heighened my state of awareness. I was alongside the truck when I saw some cargo moving above me. But it was already too late to perform a calculated evasive manuver. Out of my right ear I heard several loud 'thuds' over my already loud stereo system. Bricks had dislodged themselves from the uncovered trailer and hit the side of my car.
I fell back behind the truck, alternating the horn and high beams. The driver did not respond. I dialed 911 and got ahold of NJ State Police. I explained my situation, read them his plate, and they refused to help. They stated it was the local municipality that was responsible, and they transferred my call. I reached the police department of Totowa, NJ. By the time that connection was made, we were in another town. Totowa police said they could not help, as I was now in the town of Little Falls."This isn't going to work at these speeds" I thought.
Carefully awaiting an opening, I dropped down into forth gear and screamed past the right side of the truck, horn sounding. I began weaving between the center and left hand lanes, holding back traffic and forcing down the truck's speed. I wanted to contact the police again, but I did not safe operating the phone at that point.
Luckily, the driver of the truck became sufficiently discouraged that he pulled over his vehicle. I was able to contact the local authorities, who arrived in about 90 seconds. I assessed the damage to my car, which was minor. No glass had broken, and the headlamp was not touched. A dent in the hood, several gashes and scratches along the passenger side of the car. However, there was still a pile of bricks on the highway. The cargo consisted of small clay paving bricks, the omnipresent brownish-red type, exactly the size you would expect them to be.
Walking around his vehicle, it was obvious that some of the cargo had become dislodged. Bricks were missing on both sides of the truck. There was no plastic covering the material, it was simply banded together. After two police cruisers showed up, a DOT vehicle showed up to slow down traffic so that any debris removal could take place. The incident probably slowed down a lot of people's commute home from work or trip down the shore. I was cool with the driver, after all it was not his fault that somebody failed to load his truck properly. Although I would like to think there exists some responsbility there, I'm sure his boss wouldn't be happy with him if he refused to take a load because "it didn't look like it was packed properly".
Fortunately, I was able to get this truck off the road before it seriously injured anyone. I also proved my Cougar is a pretty strong car to sustain such little damage from being hit by paving bricks that fell about 3' before making contact with her body. Everyone else on the highway was lucky not to strike the brick with their tire. For those that aren't familiar with NJ traffic patterns, traffic speed does not always decrease with high density. At this particular time of day, roughly 7:00pm, traffic density was high (probably around 120 cars per minute) and traffic speed was around 55-60 mph. Civil engineers will note those numbers don't make sense anywhere but New Jersey and Los Angeles. A tire impact with a brick would cause any vehicle to loose control, and may cause an SUV's tire to blow out, inducing rollover at that speed. With the traffic density and average speed at that location, at that time, a serious incident could have occurred. The accident investigation process slowed down traffic sufficiently to circumvent the same.
I would post pics, but the damage is not interesting. Several small gashes in the paint, and a small dent in the hood...nothing shocking.