[levimaes]

I was actually driving down a boulevard in San Francisco, California (CA I-1; 19th Blvd), which has the expected frequent downhills and uphills, and I shit you not a two trailer, solid iron, kind-of-construction-refuse-freighter 14-wheeler was braking at each of the stoplights by skidding--like 5 or 10 feet, on its rear wheels. The same kind of skidding that everyone who's ever fish-tailed has come to revere. But at 25 tons. And 9 feet high. At 30 MPH, and downhill, for like 2 miles.

Eventually he made it with me onto the I-280, but instead of reporting it, I spent the entire time becoming intimately accustomed to the incapabilities of my car's voice dialing system. I can't imagine something like that being legal.

Oh, and if anyone reads this: Look up some videos of trucks and vans with unsecured loads. Like landscaping trucks and vans, or trucks with Home Depot/home-improvement loads. Their stuff falls off, so follow your reflexive unease and repulsion and leave their lane and proximity.

[japhyr]

Yes, stay far behind the barely-braking heavy loads and get far in front of the loose unsecured loads.

I was driving a highway in Colorado and I saw a flatbed with a bunch of large haybales, cubes of about 6' each. The top one was unsecured, so I raced out in front of that truck. A few minutes later I saw it fly off the top of the truck behind me. The highway was eerily empty behind me for a while after that. Scary stuff!