0:00

Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I

0:02

Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Welcome

0:08

to another episode of Car Stuff. Everyone.

0:10

I am Kurt Garren and I'm here today

0:12

with Ben Bowling. How are you doing today? Ben

0:14

always always do it well man, as

0:16

long as they keep the rubber on the road. How are

0:18

you doing, Hurt? I mean that's good to hear. The same

0:21

same as we start our show today.

0:23

It's always a good reminder to all of us drivers

0:25

out there that operating a vehicle on the roadway

0:28

should be undertaken with a certain

0:30

level of responsibility to you,

0:32

your passenger, as well as

0:34

your fellow human being that you're sharing the roadway.

0:36

We are all trying to get somewhere important. We

0:39

all have the same amount of time in our day, been true,

0:42

and we are usually all in a hurry

0:44

to get to where we're going. Everyone

0:46

out there listening, be excellent

0:49

to each other. As Bill s Preston

0:52

Esquire said, And if

0:54

you're thinking about hauling something today,

0:56

be sure to tie that down for everyone.

0:58

That's right. Look, if you don't have

1:01

the time to tie down that thing you're

1:03

hauling, then you don't have

1:05

the time to drive to the place

1:07

that you're taking it to You know what I mean. I

1:10

do a lot of inappropriate

1:13

hauling. I mean, I tie things down best

1:15

I can. You know what I mean, six ways to Sunday

1:18

or whatever. But the most important

1:20

thing to remember is that spending

1:23

a little bit of extra time at the

1:25

front of these kind of

1:28

missions or events saves you

1:30

so much potential headache down

1:32

the road. You were

1:34

telling me off air one

1:37

of You're telling me a very

1:39

strange road debris war

1:42

story, and at first I didn't

1:44

believe it, and I have to say

1:46

it cracks me up because you're okay,

1:48

that's right, Ben. I was driving down I

1:50

twenty one day and I

1:53

saw laying in the road ahead of

1:55

me arrange oven that I

1:57

assume had fallen off of someone's truck,

2:00

but I guess just slid out of the back. So

2:02

it's got the four burners, the four stove

2:04

burners on the top. It's got an oven

2:07

that you open up right, the whole thing

2:09

just sitting there. This blows my mind, though, Man,

2:12

you saw a road stove. I don't

2:14

know whether these are common enough that they can earn

2:16

that name, but we're calling it here on

2:18

car stuff, uh, road

2:21

stoves. So it's

2:23

strange. I do mention that it's funny

2:26

because it seems

2:28

so incongruous. It seems just so out

2:30

there and unexpected, and most importantly,

2:32

as far as we know, no one was hurt. But

2:34

my question is about the

2:36

driver hauling that

2:38

that stove before it was a road stove. Where

2:42

were they going, what were they doing? What

2:45

is their life like such that

2:47

they drop a stove in the middle

2:49

of the interstate and go, You know,

2:52

things happen. I mean

2:54

her, I got places to be. I'll just tell

2:56

him the stove didn't make it. You would think wherever

2:59

that place was, they would need the stove with

3:01

them, But I don't know. I mean, I

3:03

thought about it after it happened, and

3:06

I was surprised that I didn't see anyone

3:08

at least stopped on the shoulder. I would like

3:11

to think that they knew that it fell out, But

3:13

then again have a hard time wrapping my

3:15

head around that logic of why you don't

3:17

stop. So I'm with you, man, I don't I

3:20

don't understand. There is one thing, though,

3:22

is speculating about, and I want of your opinion on

3:24

this, Although it is a little

3:27

bit depressing. Do

3:29

you think that people who

3:31

just dropped stuff in the interstate like

3:33

that, or it falls off the back of their vehicle, whether

3:35

it's a stove, washing machine, anything,

3:38

you know, like uh that on that

3:40

order of weight or mass. Do

3:42

you think when people drop that stuff they hesitate

3:45

to pick it up because they're scared of liability?

3:49

Possibly I would be scared

3:51

to pick it of course that well, that would never happen

3:53

to me. I just want to because I tied stuff

3:55

down. This person may have thought

3:58

about pulling over. Then they were

4:00

a skeptical about running out into the street

4:02

to get the oven, because first of

4:04

all, if you make it to the to the range,

4:06

how are you going to then move that from

4:08

where it sits off of the

4:10

road. So, I mean, that's that's one of those

4:13

things that you have to grapple with. Is it worth my

4:15

life to go out there and try to get

4:17

this stove off the road, which I'm probably going

4:19

to fail at anyway, because I couldn't even tie

4:21

it down in the first place. Yes, Do you just

4:23

like settle in while you got the stove

4:25

there? You just set up like a sink, maybe

4:28

a microwave, grigerator, just

4:30

start living. That is an extreme story

4:33

of road debris. And

4:35

what we found is that road

4:37

debris isn't just the result

4:39

of car accidents and can come from a number

4:41

of situations, but it has

4:44

a huge impact on roadway

4:47

safety. And the definition

4:50

is by necessity

4:52

broad. How how does Uncle Sam

4:55

define road debris? They

4:57

define the road debris or he defines

5:00

road debris as any object

5:03

that would be in the road that's not supposed to be there,

5:05

and they refer to them as non fixed

5:07

hazards. The National Highway Traffic Safety

5:09

Administration said in two

5:12

thousand eleven that more than eight hundred people

5:14

were killed by such non fixed

5:16

hazards. Fairly dark statistic,

5:18

but it does put it into perspective kind

5:21

of how this seemingly lighthearted

5:23

subject can have the serious effect

5:25

on other people out there. And that

5:29

is sobering statistic,

5:31

but that is just addressing fatality.

5:34

Still, more than eight hundred people, it's

5:36

unbelievable. How many

5:39

accidents are we talking here? This statistic

5:41

here is according to the Triple A Foundation

5:43

for Traffic Safety. They did the study in two

5:45

thousand four that found that twenty

5:48

five thousand accidents occurred

5:50

because of road debris. That seems

5:52

like a very high number, but we also

5:55

have to realize there are millions

5:58

of cars, you know what I mean here

6:00

in our fair metropolis of Atlanta.

6:03

There was a weird thing that was happening by my house

6:06

in my neighborhood, probably

6:09

about six months ago or so. This

6:11

was a surface streep, a busy street, but still

6:13

a surface street, and I'd

6:15

be walking down the street and

6:17

I started noticing this pile

6:20

of hub caps of like you know,

6:23

the plastic hub caps that are so common

6:25

nowadays. Uh, And I wonder

6:27

what it was. At first, I

6:29

swear man, I thought it was some kind

6:32

of art thing, and I thought, Okay,

6:34

somebody's being artistic.

6:37

I guess, you know, this is

6:39

like their creative voice or whatever. It's

6:41

not for me, but there you go. So I didn't

6:44

mess with the hub caps anything like that

6:46

until my girlfriend and

6:48

I were walking gosh

6:52

too to the local pizza place or something.

6:54

As we were walking, I

6:57

heard up weird noise behind

7:00

me, and uh,

7:02

and it turned around and there was this plastic

7:05

hub cap cover that it was like flown

7:08

off because there was a pothole

7:11

that I wasn't noticing. I'm not sure whether it was like

7:13

the pothole or the curb or some combination

7:15

thereof, but apparently

7:17

for for more than a week, people have been driving

7:20

on this and you know, going

7:23

at a pretty high rate of speed for the size

7:25

of the road, and they have been

7:27

hitting this unexpected pothole and

7:29

losing I guess the front right hubcap or

7:31

something to it. And then now,

7:36

of course the hub caps

7:38

weren't all neatly falling in a pile. Somebody

7:40

was taking them and moving them to

7:43

that pile. I don't know who who

7:45

was doing it. Maybe it was like the security

7:47

guard or the landscaping person

7:49

at the local bank or something,

7:52

just trying to keep the driveway clean. But

7:55

it hit me that every

7:58

one of those hub caps, and there were

8:00

easily more than fifteen, every

8:03

one of them was a piece

8:05

of road debris generated by people

8:07

going too fast and hitting this unexpected

8:09

pothole and was really messing up

8:11

people's cars. Eventually, someone

8:14

gave it the old Atlanta pavement

8:16

fix, which is, instead of fixing the pothole,

8:19

you take a metal plate, like we mentioned

8:21

the previous episode. They just slap that

8:23

on there, so now it has that metal plate,

8:26

and it got me thinking all the weird

8:28

road debris. Thankfully, it's not as dangerous

8:31

as a road stove, be at

8:33

hub caps or glass

8:35

or any type of road debris, there's

8:38

clean up involved, and so the question

8:40

then arises who

8:42

picks it up, because if no one picked it up, there

8:45

would be just trash everywhere. So obviously

8:47

there's someone dedicated to this

8:49

gigantic task. In an accident

8:52

situation, generally the clean up

8:54

would fall upon the tow truck driver

8:56

the to clean up the minor debris

8:59

that they can fit on their truck. Or

9:01

you'll see a bumper, yeah, hanging

9:04

out of the window of the damaged car on the rear

9:06

of the toad truck. They might toss the side mirror

9:08

in there or something like that. And that clean

9:10

up, though, is part of

9:12

the charge that people incur when they get a

9:14

vehicle toad other things like stoves.

9:17

Maybe that would fall on the d O T maintenance

9:19

screws road stove for

9:21

some reason. Do you remember that song Convoy?

9:24

I'll play it for you later Convolation by C.

9:26

W. McCall. We won't play it on air. Long

9:29

time listeners know what this song is about.

9:31

It's a great song about a great road

9:33

trip. But now instead of

9:35

the lyrics, plain in my head as convoy.

9:38

It's going roads though, I

9:42

gotta send this to you. I you

9:44

know what. I'm sorry because I know this makes no

9:46

sense to you, but I guarantee you when you see the when

9:49

you see the video, it'll make sense. Can

9:51

connect the dots then and connect the dots,

9:53

And just to manage some expectations

9:56

here, man, I want you to know going into

9:58

it that the Joe is not worth it.

10:00

It's not a good joke that I just made, but it's

10:03

a great song. So

10:15

the tow truck driver has to handle

10:18

cleaning up an accident oftentime.

10:21

And while these

10:23

tow truck professionals are doing this, they're

10:26

often also having to deal with

10:29

someone who is having a terrible day.

10:31

Someone who've just gotten an accident, is

10:34

maybe in shock, is definitely

10:37

irritated because who wants to deal with insurance

10:40

and is a

10:42

little adult. They're happy

10:45

to be alive, right, hopefully they're not

10:47

injured. It's easy for people.

10:49

I know it sounds silly when we say, oh, there was a

10:51

accident on the road, someone left their bumper. Who

10:54

forgets their bumper? But when you are so

10:56

grateful not to be dead, that

10:59

sort of can wombs The majority of

11:01

your attention span, and it's very

11:04

easy to just realize days

11:06

or even weeks later that

11:08

you left hub caps or tire

11:11

or a bumper. Who took care of that, you know what

11:13

I mean. It's all a blur. Yeah, that's

11:15

even if you think of it at all. Absolutely

11:18

So, speaking of professionals,

11:21

let's talk a little bit about what

11:24

happens when it goes beyond the

11:26

tow truck driver. Because the tow

11:28

truck driver, just be clear,

11:31

they're not going to be driving

11:33

around in their non towing hours

11:35

just picking up trash

11:38

and debris from the roadside. They only

11:40

do that when they're towing a car. Generally,

11:43

the tow truck driver will have the capacity

11:45

to clean up minor fuel

11:47

spills. They have material

11:49

that they can pour on the road that absorbs

11:52

oil gas, that sort

11:54

of thing, and then they can sweep that up and

11:56

have it contained and dispose of it properly.

11:59

For larger bills, perhaps there will

12:01

be a has matt professionals coming

12:03

in to clean up their companies that do that

12:05

sort of thing out there as well. And

12:07

unfortunately, sometimes it's not just

12:10

vehicle debris that is left

12:12

behind after an accident. Sometimes there's medical

12:14

type waste left behind as well. So

12:17

back to the darker side. When paramedics

12:20

and firefighters are trying to save a

12:22

life at the scene of an accident, they're not typically

12:24

concerned about what they leave behind at the scene,

12:26

So someone must pick that up as well, and

12:28

that team of people is going to be the

12:31

good folks at the d O T. So

12:33

whenever you see these these folks cleaning

12:36

up after the scene of an accident,

12:39

drive carefully, give them some give

12:41

them a wide berth, give him respect because

12:43

they are doing a job that is often

12:46

as unpleasant

12:49

as it is necessary and crucial.

12:51

Right. It's weird because one of the

12:54

things we didn't talk about when

12:57

we've been kicking around the idea of road debris

12:59

was the concept of

13:02

road kill. Right, And

13:04

you and I have seen a lot of road kill

13:06

in our time. I

13:09

say that authoritatively, but we've driven through rural

13:11

Georgia, you know what I mean. So you'll see dear,

13:13

you'll see crow, you'll see possums, raccoons

13:16

and so on. There's an interesting

13:18

distinction in the way that some

13:21

municipalities and communities approach

13:23

it. There's a public information officer named

13:26

Ronnie Edis who was talking

13:28

to Rick Davis, a journalist

13:30

for The Press Enterprise, about who is responsible

13:33

for car debris and road clean up, and

13:35

he said, if a dead animal on a

13:38

road for which we're responsible for

13:40

the maintenance of is a cat, dog

13:42

or some other domestic animal, our

13:45

departments operations staff will

13:47

come out and pick it up and haul it away.

13:50

But if the animal is a possum

13:52

or some other wild creature, we do

13:54

not pick up those interesting

13:57

distinctions. I would love to get more

13:59

details on this. I'm wondering if maybe

14:02

it's a conservation thing, like

14:04

wild animals die, so you want,

14:07

uh, you know, when they die, their food for other

14:09

wild animals, buzzard.

14:12

Yeah, let the buzzards get it, or you

14:14

know, other scavenging creatures.

14:17

But to be clear, that's entirely

14:20

speculative. I don't know why.

14:23

I just imagine that that's the case. So

14:25

that goes to show that people working for DT,

14:28

people working for maintenance, they don't just

14:30

clean up the remnants of car accidents.

14:32

They also have to clean up road kill. They'll

14:35

also need to handle debris

14:38

that has nothing to do with an accident but could

14:40

cause one, like a downed tree. Well,

14:42

roadkill can cause an accident. I've seen people

14:45

swerving around carcasses

14:47

before, so I mean they can be dangerous

14:49

as well. Do you remember the time when

14:51

the cows got loose on the

14:54

interstate Oh okay,

14:56

this one is okay because some of the cows

14:58

survived, right, Yeah. Yeah, the truck that

15:00

was carrying them may have been involved in some sort of an accident

15:03

that caused the cows to escape. This was early

15:05

in the morning, so before the morning rush hour, so

15:08

there was an operation to wrangle

15:11

all of the cows up. So they had to call in

15:13

some I guess cowboys to

15:15

come in, and they ended up getting most

15:17

of them. They were

15:19

able to get the last one, I believe during

15:22

the evening rush hours. I mean, this was an all day

15:24

event. I just liked the idea of these uh,

15:27

these guys hanging out, you know, maybe

15:29

they have maybe they have a station the

15:32

way that firefighters do. Well,

15:34

I guess it would be a ranch. They're

15:37

hanging out and then one of them

15:39

gets the call. They're like, all right, boys,

15:41

saddle up is what we've been training for.

15:44

You know. I'm sure they loved it.

15:59

Yeah. Yeah,

16:02

we've had a couple of animal escapes like that.

16:04

I remember a while back. I

16:06

believe it was in Atlanta. There was a zebra

16:09

on the loose, and I learned about it during

16:12

rush hour, and briefly

16:14

I thought, you know, can I

16:16

make it over there in time

16:19

to see the zebra before they catch

16:21

the poor guy? But I had I had gotten

16:23

the information wrong, and there's no way I was going to make

16:25

it I have. I

16:27

don't know if this even counts. Is debris have

16:29

a catastrophic road debris

16:32

story. The Hubcap one was the

16:34

fun one. But this,

16:36

this road debris story, is something

16:38

that I am sure affected both

16:40

of us to some degree. And

16:43

it is the day in Atlanta

16:45

that the road itself became

16:47

debris. That's right, folks. A

16:50

few years back, for some reason,

16:52

there's a sketchy story behind us. For some reason,

16:55

few years back, part of Interstate

16:57

eighty five, which is a crucial

17:00

artery through the city, just collapsed.

17:02

Part of the interstate that was built on a

17:05

bridge dropped,

17:08

literally just dropped to the ground under the

17:10

most sketchy of circumstances.

17:12

We can talk about this in a lighthearted

17:14

manner because somehow

17:17

no one was injured. I can't believe it.

17:19

That's amazing, is amazing. So it

17:21

just it dropped. And the official

17:24

story was that there were three

17:26

people who were sleeping

17:28

rough living outdoors, and

17:30

they were under this bridge and

17:33

they had started a fire, and the

17:35

fire grew out of control, and the

17:38

fire, fueled by the stuff

17:40

it consumed under the bridge, led to

17:42

the collapse of the road. It kind of

17:44

looked like a fiber optic

17:47

cable of some sort, something like that. It's the orange

17:49

stuff that you sometimes he sticking out of the

17:51

ground waiting to be buried, and so

17:54

it's gigantic rolls of plastic

17:56

pipe apparently burns very

17:58

hot, hot enough to collapse a

18:01

concrete bridge. Another thing this

18:03

unrelated to road. Another thing that was fascinating

18:06

was a lot of conspiracy theories proliferated

18:09

and people were saying, well, the

18:11

official story doesn't quite add up, which

18:13

I agree with. There's some pretty major plot

18:15

holes there. Um, And they would say the

18:17

official story doesn't add up. You know what really

18:20

happened. They did

18:22

this cover up because they

18:25

didn't want people to know what was really

18:27

going on. You gotta love how there's

18:29

always a they in these

18:31

sorts of stories. Some of the theories I

18:33

heard were that some faction

18:36

of the local government was smuggling

18:38

something or how to corrupt what

18:41

they were either smuggling something illicit,

18:44

and they decided the best way to keep it out of the

18:46

news was to cut lapse. A

18:48

bridge doesn't check

18:50

out. And then the other thing was the idea

18:52

that there was some corruption or

18:55

city funding scandal and

18:58

that people were making gonna make a lot of money

19:00

off repairing the bridge. I don't

19:03

think there was some vast insidious

19:06

conspiracy to collapse

19:09

a bridge because well

19:11

why, I mean, it made national news. How often

19:14

does a major interstate catch

19:16

fire and collapse? It's not every day you see

19:18

it. But hey, you know who knows what

19:20

goes on out there? You know, just

19:22

just the people under the bridge, like

19:25

like that is that? Isn't there a red Hot Chili Pepper

19:27

song about that? And

19:30

so we see the story of road

19:32

debris has several unsung

19:35

heroes. There are towing

19:37

professionals involved, there are d

19:39

ot workers involved, also professional.

19:42

Of course, there are occasionally cowboys

19:45

involved. But if

19:47

we're looking at the unsung

19:50

heroes of road debris, we

19:52

have to mention one of the most

19:54

important people in the entire equation,

19:57

and that is you speci

20:00

Typically, you listening now,

20:02

no, not that person. You. Of

20:04

course, if you have a minor

20:06

accident, say you're bumped the tree, or

20:09

you back into your mailbox,

20:11

yeah, or a barrier at a parking

20:14

deck or something, yeah, simply pick up

20:16

after yourself. Tie down your oven, Tie

20:18

down your oven. If you've learned one

20:20

thing, don't be a part of

20:22

the road stove epidemic eating

20:24

this nation's inner states alive. Only

20:27

you can prevent road stoves.

20:33

It's true, though, you should try to

20:35

make not to be two boy scout about it, but you

20:37

should try to leave

20:39

the scene of an accident better than it was when

20:41

you found it, if at all possible.

20:43

Because if you don't like the idea of

20:46

you cleaning up for your own sake, just

20:48

think of the fact that you could

20:51

be potentially saving the

20:53

lives or ensuring the safety

20:56

of people that you may

20:58

never meet. You know what I mean. It's for

21:00

the driver who comes behind you

21:02

and the driver roho comes after you. And

21:05

you still need to use common

21:08

sense when it comes to road debris, whether it's a

21:10

washing machine, road stove, what

21:12

have you, and take a few extra

21:14

minutes to check your ties and

21:17

make sure that you're not going to have something

21:19

flying off in the middle road. You know what we

21:22

should mention some of the other common ones. Ladders,

21:25

I said, a lot of ladders from construction

21:27

trucks. Uh, mattresses.

21:30

Sometimes people just I think what it is

21:32

is they don't realize how swiftly

21:34

a mattress can come become airborne

21:36

at high speeds. This was fascinating

21:39

to me, Kurt, because I honestly

21:41

had never thought about it, And now I have a new founder

21:44

appreciation for the people who come and clean

21:46

up the road, because if they

21:48

weren't there, the roads wouldn't be drivable.

21:51

Think about how much stuff just adds up on a

21:53

given day. Think of the hub caps, just the pile of

21:55

hub caps a low Maybe we have to do another sell.

21:57

And where where all this stuff goes? Yeah,

22:00

junk yards, salvage yards, whatever, I would

22:02

assume. Okay, so I would assume

22:04

if it is it's some result

22:07

of an accident and it's not something

22:09

that could be resold as a component. I

22:11

think a lot of it goes to a scrap yard, um,

22:14

maybe to a salvage yard. And of course

22:17

the road kill goes to Arvy's. You're

22:20

gonna let me get away with that one. Gull

22:22

is gonna make a similar comment about

22:24

how people normally will eat that stuff before

22:26

the d ot gets around to it. Do

22:29

you know anybody's ever actually wrote no,

22:33

No, I I've I've eat I've hunted,

22:35

and I've eaten animals that have

22:38

you know, like comedy, been like

22:40

deer or something. But I

22:43

I myself have never you

22:45

know, I don't want to sound too fancy, man, but

22:48

I've never been tempted. I've

22:50

never been driving by and saw an armadiller

22:52

or a possum and thought, you know what,

22:55

tonight's the night to surprise my girlfriends

22:58

freaking see. So

23:00

yeah, be excellent to each other

23:03

and to the road, well said, and

23:05

I love the call back to one of

23:08

the best film franchises of

23:10

all time. This concludes

23:12

today's episode, but not our show. I

23:15

am gonna go check out the Ford

23:17

and Ferrari film. He's coming

23:19

out. I think that that's as we're recording

23:21

that releases this week, right, it's

23:24

coming out tonight actually, so we're

23:26

gonna head out today. We want everybody

23:28

to drive safe, regardless

23:31

of where you're driving or where you're going,

23:33

and most importantly, I

23:36

have a great time on the road. Well I'm

23:38

supposed to say, most importantly, be safe, but

23:40

you have a great time to write.

23:43

That sounds little dad of us. Do you

23:46

kids have a great time safe?

23:48

Uh so, So the conversation

23:51

doesn't stop at the end

23:53

of today's episode. We want to

23:55

hear from you. We want to hear your car Debrie road

23:57

stories. What's the weirdest thing you saw

24:00

on the road? Fun fact our fair

24:02

Metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia holds

24:04

a dubious world record technically

24:07

for the largest amount of

24:09

Dice or Die rolled at

24:11

once. That's because a truck

24:13

from a gaming company had an accident

24:16

here and two hundred and sixteen

24:18

thousand Dice or Die were

24:20

spilled across the roadway. So

24:23

that's Those are some of our crazy debris

24:25

stories. You've got road stove, We've

24:28

got the road collapsing, we got some

24:30

hub cap art, and we've got all

24:32

like hundreds of thousands of dice and interstate

24:36

interstate cow. How did I that's the best

24:38

one. Let us know, Let us know the

24:40

weirdest things that you've seen. You can find

24:42

us on Facebook, you can find us on Instagram,

24:44

you can find us on Twitter where we are

24:47

car stuff hsw or some derivation

24:50

thereof you've heard Kurt and I

24:52

refer to some of our earlier episodes

24:55

good news, folks, or you know bad

24:57

news. How you feel about the show.

25:00

You can find every single episode

25:02

that Kurt, Scott and I have ever done

25:04

for free auto website car stuff

25:06

show dot com. Thanks everyone for listening

25:09

and we will see you next time. Car

25:17

Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff

25:19

Works. For more podcasts from my heart

25:21

Radio, visit the i heart Radio

25:23

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