Had a little mishap with the truck...

[arveetek]

Coming home after church Sunday night, my wife and I were driving home in the dark on a two-lane highway, just leaving town heading into the country. I was doing about 50 mph when all of a sudden there appeared in the headlights a huge, fallen tree limb blocking the road. There was a car coming the other direction, so all I could do was slam on the brakes. All four wheels were locked up, but I still slammed into the tree limb. It smashed the windshield and broke one of the corner moldings on the grill, as well as scratched the paint on the hood and fender.

The limb had to have just fallen moments before we got there...this was on a fairly busy highway, and nobody had seen it or ran into it yet. I had just read an article in Reader's Digest about the dangers of falling trees, etc., on the roads, and I thought that the odds of me driving underneath a tree just as it's falling would be astronomical....guess it's not so hard to believe after all! I can seriously say that a tree jumped out in front of me!

This was no small tree limb, but nearly half a tree that had fallen over onto the road, and was high enough in the air that it busted the windshield on my wife's side. She felt some glass hit her, but luckily neither of us were scratched or bruised. After slamming into the tree, it was all busted up enough that we could easily remove it from the road.

Really, I'm quite surprised that there wasn't any more damage than there was. The truck's at the shop right now, getting a new windshield.

Stay safe, and be alert out there!

Casey

[trbankii]

Good to hear that you and the missus are ok.

I was driving along the Pennsylvania Turnpike a few years ago and watched as a tree just toppled over and fell onto the highway lanes going the opposite direction. Luckily, there was nobody close by and the people coming up to it had time to stop. But middle of the day, no high winds, but it had been raining heavily the previous couple days.

[doncannon]

arveetek,
Glad to hear that you and the mrs. are both ok.
Don

[arveetek]

Thanks for the kind words!

I got the truck back from the shop with the new windshield installed. In all honesty, the windshield took most of the brunt of the force. There's several paint scratches on the hood, but I'm hoping they'll buff out. The worst spot is the broken grill trim on the driver's side, which is easily replaced, but it also dented the very front corner of the fender, and chipped the paint off. Just another battle scar, I guess. The rest of the paint (which is 7 years old now) is showing some wear as by now anyway.

I replaced the windshield wipers (one was knocked off), and reinstalled the sun visor which had been knocked loose. Pretty much back to normal, now.

I did notice the front of the hood is torn right at the "v", behind the bug shield. The bottom side of the hood is torn too, where the hood latch is. Not too bad, just some more damage I just saw tonight.

Really, it's all very minor stuff, and most folks wouldn't know anything had happened, now that the new windshield has been replaced. I just hated to see my baby get scratched up, is all! tongue.gif

Casey

[john8662]

Bummer! Glad that no one was hurt, thats the first priority.

Thats a freak occurrance, I'm sure glad that there aren't many trees here where it's mostly dry, hot and flat.

No fun when the truck gets hurt, I guess you're also happy that the damage that did occur is not as bad as it could be. Thats crazy that the windshield too most of the blow.

[dieselcrawler]

Glad to hear that all's well... I also lost a w/s much the same way about 2 years ago... tree limb fell, it was up on the bank, so it was w/s hight, just on the other side of a blind turn. Dark stormy night, I never saw it untill the glass was flyin'.

Greg

[Dieselboy]

Glad you're safe. As Joe Dirt would say, "**it'll buff out." :D

[Turbo Al]

Glad you are both AOK sorry about the damage to the truck.
Just about the same thing happened to me a couple of months back. It was about 1 a.m. and the tones went off (Vol Firefighter) Fire Alarm at the School -- School is one block from my place so I did a slow driveby and saw nothing. Now of course it is illegal to speed ;) whether or not you are going to a emerg call or not, so lets just say I was MOVING along the road to the Hall when something in the far reaches of the high beams just didn't look right-- I have driven this road code 3 about 500 times in 10 years, CRAP TREE!! full on the brakes NOWHERE To go so I aimed for the bushy part (top) rather than the 1 foot main trunk. Truck stopped -- thankfully just inches from it. I still had to get to the Hall so I angled my way over it in 4x4 low and because I am not the only one that uses that route to the hall I put out a warning on the radio about the tree.
I am really lucky I didn't hit BUT I have four speeds going to the Hall
1. Fire Alarms usally false so MED-FAST
2. Auto accidents FAST
3. Auto accidents/Stucture fires with people trapped FAST TO FASTER
4. ANYTHING involveing children or heart failure
Dam the torpedo's FULL SPEED AHEAD just plain hold on :eek:
Al

[84 Convert]

Whaddaya know! I read this post Wed. night and thought " note to self: you drive a tree infested road to and from work every day...watch yourself". Friday evening I lost the glass out of the pass. side mirror to a smaller limb in much the same way.

Glad to hear things weren't worse for you though.

Gregg