My friend Andy Anderson collected one with his '32 grille. To add insult to injury, it rolled up and stayed stuck against his radiator. Quite a conversation piece when he finally got to the drags! JimSig
I got a Texas speed bump "armadillo" on the way home from town tonight I tried to stradle the lil bastard but they jump and it sounded like it bounced through the floor of my truck but all was well ,for me at least he probably had a head ache.
One night I was riding one of my old bikes from Sydney to Wagga Wagga when I almost got knocked off my bike be 2x5 inch lump of rubber coming off at ruck heading in the other direction. Hit my helmet on the right side and tore the mount and visor clean off. Scared the shit out of me and hurt like a son of a bitch! Doc.
I always thought these things were recaps gone bad but the truckers say Hell no, they're new tires that come apart....I had a radial tire that was 3 years old throw the tread off on my way to Paso in the '52...A whitewall 721 Firestone..Seems to me that tire manufacturers have trouble making good tires anymore. Man, we used to drive 75-85 MPH on bias plys and darn if they didn't do a heck of a good job..course they sure didn't go 50-70,000 miles either.
I've always called them Interstate Alligators. A friends of mine had a really nice Westcott bodied 33 Ford 3-window and he and his young daughter were comming home from a show in Atlanta he was between 2 big trucks and one threw a re-cap running beside him,,,people were bumper to bumper running about 60 MPH and there was nothing he could do. It slamed into his left front fender and split the fender to pieces and the running board,,it got a cherry original 33 grill and headlight and destroyed the hood,,broke the windshield and messed up a nice black paint job. Long story short,,he had insurance and the repairs were made but the accident really bothered him and he sold the car just a few months after the repairs,,,he hasn't owned a hot rod since that time. HRP
One of my dads friends was killed by a road gator. He was broke down on an off ramp when a passing truck threw the tread. It hit dads friend from behind and wrapped around him......
Hey Lee;glad you're OK.The car you can always repair.This pic was lifted from the new issue of AutoWeek.A lady was drive testing the new Fiesta(a pre-production prototype)doing about 75 on a freeway when an Olds Cutlass lost a front wheel coming in the other direction doing about the same speed.Tire assembly passed him,went down into the ditch in the median,launched about 20 feet in the air and hit the Fiesta just as she was coming out from under an overpass.As they said;six inches to the left and it probably would have decapitated her.As it was she escaped with a glass bath.
...better than a dear ...For those lucky ones who have never encountered a road gator in heat, be thankful. They can get viscous. ...I almost got attacked by a rouge ladder on the way to yosemite So, how much better than a viscous gator is a dear...cause a thick slimy gator is hard to catch...but ,far worse is to be attacked by a rouge ladder ...them red ones are viscous... ...deer me ,it's almost time for afternoon meds... ...
Few years back my 51 truck was being used in the Goldie Hawn movie "Hope". When they finished it I was called to pick it up and on the way back home a gator got on the RR fender and took out the running board and front area of the fender and ripped out the rr brake line from the wheel cylinder. It was a mean sob and caused lots of grief. I keep my eyes pealed for the critters now.
yeah i would say better than a deer too.. 10,600 dollars to fix..and nothing left of the deer to eat..rolled up fur on the side of the road, and hamburger to fill a 5 gallon bucket..covered in Dex-cool..not to tasty i suppose
This is why I have a hard time buying a new or nearly new vehicle, other than always being broke. I hit a deer with my 75 Dodge Monaco on the way to work one day. The fibreglass header panel was blown apart and the front edge of the hood bent up and shorted the battery long enough to kill the engine. I got out, made sure Bambi's mom was dead and assessed the damage. Both headlights on the drivers side gone, header toast, grill gone but the rad was fine (about 2 feet from the bumper to the rad) and I flipped the key and drove it home again. My brother went after the deer (that guy would eat the asshole out of a skunk), I borrowed a car and went to work. After work I bought a gallon of hairy glass bondo, bent the hood down again and rebuilt the busted header with the glass, straightened the headlight buckets out and put a couple new lights in, made a grille out of flourescent light diffusers, sprayed some paint at and that was done. Total cost of repair $35.00. Come to think of it, I should have hit my brother up for the money as he had venasin all that winter.
I drive a semi for a living here in Texas where the road temps are similar to the surface of the sun. It always scares the crap outta me when I see a motorcycle or convertible following too close. There's not a damned thing I can do about a recap flying off at 60 MPH. If one cuts loose and you're too close, you WILL take some damage. When I ride my bike, I never get within 300 feet of the back of a truck on the highway. Sorry to hear your coupe got bitten by one of those ornery varmints. They can be down right nasty when provoked!
Ask any serious tire guy and I'm sure they'll agree; tires have a mind of their own to some degree. You can maintain them to the letter and it that cap doesn't wanna stay where it's supposed to, it won't. For that reason, I never hover next to or behind big tires. Trust me, the coupe has been broken in for a long time and I don't baby it. Like many others on here, it was built to drive not to sit in a garage waiting for a repair. Thanks to all for making this far more entertaining to me. Every road trip, no matter the length should come with a good story. Isn't that the point?
The TV show MythBusters had a segment a while back on Road Gators. Their tests decapitated "Buster" quite easily at 40 mph. Scary stuff.
I was moving across country when a Road Gator came off a semi in Kingman, AZ and damned near killed me. It came off a truck and got sucked up under another 18-wheeler, dislodging pieces of metal and fiberglass from him. I dodged some of the spall, but not the gator, as it came down in a high, parabolic arc. It pinwheeled by my head, took out my left running board, bounced off the tarmac, and slammed into my trailer, tearing a huge gouge in it and crumpling the fender, before it whipped up and smacked the guy behind me. There were 3 of us sitting on the side of I-40, shaky and breathing hard. The trucker in front of me lost a huge chunk of fender, I lost a nerf bar on the truck and the fender on the trailer, and the guy behind me had his grill and radiator stove in. My Harley and household goods were safe in the trailer, but I needed a new pair of underoos.
Myth busters did a deal on "can a semi-truck tire that throws the tread decapitate a guy". They can, in a heartbeat.
the words "Nice" and "lot lizard"..are oxy morons...like..Jumbo Shrimp..or military intelligence..they dont go well together
My Dad is a retired truck driver. He had a guy in a big Black Cadillac 'drafting' him. He told him by CB he needed to back off cause he really didn't trust the recaps on the company flat bed. The guy responded he could drive anywhere he wanted....OKAY. Few miles down the road the a tire blew and took the mud flap and bracket with it. My Dad pulls off and the guy all PO'd....my Dad of course has a big smile. He said see the number on the trailer that's who you need to call. The company never heard anything. So yeah not only the tire but other debris and be heading your way. I get around and away from trucks really quick.
<HR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e5e5e5; COLOR: #e5e5e5" SIZE=1> <!-- / icon and title --><!-- message --> Quote: <TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset" class=alt2>Originally Posted by flynstone better than a dear </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> yeah, and deers are full of shit till you hit 'em! Had a gator take the grille outta my '88 Ranger a few years back. And had a deer clean out it's innards down the right side of my '69 Malibu even longer ago while stationed up at KI Sawyer AFB in da UP. Gotta watch out for the interstate's version of alley apples too. . . . Had a big one nearly come thru the windshield of my pickup - launched outta the rear dually of a 18 wheeler.
I drive a truck you shouldnt follow too closley. They was this company named bandag that sold recaps if one stayed on for 5000 miles you could wear them out. But many as we called them bandaid,s would come apart sometines only partially and beat the bejabbers out of the truck. would tear off mudflaps ,quarter fenders and do much damage.My brother was on the indiania tristate in a old ford pk. A truck lost a tarp and he ran over it and it somehow caught up in the driveshaft wound around and lifted the rear wheels clear of the ground. Had to call a wrecker to tow it home took him several hours to cut it off because when it skidded on the road the plastic tarp melted and stuck together one big congealed mass. OldWolf
I came up on one standing on end before I had time to react on the hiway, ran right over it, lucky for me, it flopped right over flat. I thought for sure I was looking at some major damage, but there was none. I was lucky, my 40 sits pretty low............
Came up on one full size Road Gator on the way to work one morning coming up loop 410 here in San Antonio, which is notorious for them. And by fullsize , I mean the whole damn semi bias ply tire in my lane twisted up like a large pretzl! Anyhow being the morning traffic commute, i was not able to shift lanes to avoid the sucker, so decided to run right over it hoping i would clear it but my 07 daily driver chevy cobalt thought otherwise, $250 dollars later that day for a cracked raidator, damn thing bounced up enuff and bit a small crack into the driver side front end just enuff to crack it, luckily these lil cars have stone deflectors and such built on the bottom for such things, but it wasnt enuff! That ROad Gator to won the battle!!!
Back when I first got my learners permit I was driving on a trip to the hill country in my moms t-bird. A road gator leaped off a truck directly in front of me. All I could do was straddle it. I got lucky, no damage, but scary for a new driver. Here we got a lot of vultures or buzzards, whatever they are. The like to fly towards the road when you pass by. We hit 3 at once in our work truck when I was an oilfield compressor tech. One on the bumper and the other two hit the work bed.
One of the mid-Atlantic states has trucks that patrol the highway. We saw one on the way to the Turkey run. On the way home we counted them for shits and giggles. We didn't count little chunks, only the bigguns. We counted over a hundred between Daytona and Wash. DC. 1200ish miles. On the way home from picking up my buddies 57 Ford up in Pa., I saw one explode. I say explode because the damn thing must have gone 100 feet into the air. The truck was a 1/4 mile in front of me when it when off. I said what the hell is that. I had to slam on the brakes. I was afraid of driving under it and getting hit from above. Believe me it's a scary thing to see one of those things spinning around like a helicopter rotor way up there. If I had not seen it, I never would have believed how high it went.
sCatter Ladders scare me more then Road Gators when I ride my motorcycle or drive my daily. Have seen some serious damage and accidents from them laying in the 99 and I-5 freeways here in Cali. Saw my share or Road Gators growing up in Blythe, Calimexico in 120 degree heat in the shade.-Weeks
Had a double whammy couple years back. I was driving my old (t)rusty '66 CJ5 4-banger when i spotted a huge gator right in the middle of the two lanes, I stomped on the brakes and swerved to the right to avoid it. The oldtimer in the truck behind me was a little late reactin' so he really had to brake hard, and he followed my pattern... only his empty trailer had other plans, it unhitched and ran straight past me and over the lurking gator it did some very tricky manouvering and then came straight at me with a vengeance. All I could do to miss it was go for the ditch. I was lucky to have taken the old Jeep that morning cause a done some real fancy off-roading before I came to a stop in the field after a couple hundred yards. After checking for damage (non whatsoever miraculously) I tried to roll me a smoke to calm me down, I ripped up six rolling papers before I could steady my hands enough to roll one up and got to light it !!
The Jalopy Journal
