A definite OH S**T! moment...

[cactusjack]

This happened to me less than an hour ago. Let me set this up for you. I walk out of the building I work in, get on my bike and ride about 1200' to the southbound ramp of the Loop 202 freeway. I enter the freeway, and 3 miles later, it ends and the southbound lanes split, left to get on the Loop 202 E, right to head west. I go left and enter a big "flyover" ramp about 100 feet above the interchange below in a big, sweeping 90 degree turn. The ramp is 2 lanes, with maybe a 2' shoulder and concrete barrier walls on both sides. I always ride the left lane on the ramp, because it has an easier merge at the end.

I'm following a work truck - a pickup towing a small flatbed trailer. I've seen all kinds of things come off these trailers over the years, so experience tells me to follow at a greater distance than normal. I'm about 5-6 car lengths behind it, at about 65 MPH. We head up the ramp, and start to turn and I hear a "clank". I'm thinking the truck ran over something on the road. I see a 4'-5' long section of wrought iron railing flip up from the passenger side trailer wheel, fly back over the trailer, still spinning, and it hit the edge of the left hand barrier wall. I instinctively ducked my head and started slowing, preparing for the worst possible outcome. I couldn't move to the right lane because there was too much traffic. To my disbelief, the section of railing flips over the barrier and falls to the interchange down below. I have no idea where it landed, I hope it didn't go through the roof or windshield of someone's car.

I'm watching this truck closely, and I see another piece of railing slide off the flatbed trailer and it did pretty much the same thing the first one did. I thought this one was going to nail me. It didn't seem to hit as high on the barrier as the first one, but it too went over the edge. This time, the driver of the truck starts slowing down and puts on his flashers, as soon as it's clear, he pulls to the right, BLOCKING MOST OF THE RIGHT LANE! I wanted to get out of there before some unsuspecting driver came around that curve and rear ended this guy. I started accelerating hard to get away.

As I passed the truck, the driver's window was down and he had one of the absolutely dumbest expressions I have ever seen on a human face. I yelled at him "tie your f***ing load down, a**hole!" He just looked at me with this blank stare and for a split second, I think he realized he could have killed somebody. I just hope the 2 sections of railing didn't do any damage as they fell to the lanes 100 feet below.