Blimey that was close.
This little tale demonstrates how thing beyond your control can be rather alarming.Along with friends we,ve had a great weekend up at the CC site at Coniston and now were heading back down the M6 in convoy on our way home.My mate is in front and i,ve got the cruise control on doing a steady 60mph.Its sunday so not too busy and its a fine day.Anyway as we roll along i have noticed there is a steady stream of cars passing me that are towing jet ski.s on small trailers.I remark too the missus that there must have been a competition on somewhere up the lakes.
As we role along i hear what sounds like a faint rumbleing noise from somewhere and as i look in my mirror a small 4x4 icomeing up on my right towing one of these small trailers.As it gets level with me i notice that the jockey wheel has come loose on the trailer and has dropped down and is bouncing on the road.I look up at the driver who is a young girl with her boyfriend asleep in the front passenger seat.Now i can hear the noise from the j/wheel but the driver seems completely oblivious (maybe they had music on).The 4x4 is doing around 65mph so you can imagine what revs the 6inch jockey wheel is doing.I tell my missus too warn my mate in front then just as the 4x4 gets past me the jockey wheel sheared off.It came bouncing out from under the trailer between both the vans and then bounced over my bonnet onto the hard shoulder and up the banking.My god i thought if that had hit my windscreen or one of the vans the damage would have been conciderable.The 4x4 carried on as if nothing had happened and disappeared up the moddle lane.
An example of how helpless you can be in certan circumtances.
peter.
Comments
-
I can sympathise with your concerns. I had a 'D' shackle from a trucks sidecovers come through my screen on an 'A' road. I saw it comming so I protected my face but it stopped on the top of the dash. The windscreen took the energy out of it. We were all
coverd in shards of glass but uninjured. I can not imagine what damage a jockey wheel could do. Frightening!0 -
I'm not the pheasant plucker in the pheasant pluckers son, i was only plucking feathers when it came through the windscreen at 55mph.
The dam thing flew across the car in front of me up into the air, i couldn't see it untill it was too late. It hit the windshield right infront of my eyes. All i could do was close my eyes and brake hard and hope i was braking in a straight line, much like yourself
Peter, I only had time to close my eyes. I could not open my eyes because they were full of tiny pieces of glass from the smashed windshield. The bird actually left an indent the size of half a football into the screen. I was lucky i did not have any other
traffic around me at the time.So anyone travelling along the A417 between Swindon and Gloucester beware!
KevinO
0 -
Travelling in a friend's Morgan with the hood down we both saw a brick that had been stuck between the rear double wheels of a tipper come flying up towards us. Oh so glad it hit the windscreen!
0
