An armchair nearly took-out the Insight.
That sentence alone may sound oddly funny, but it really wasn't. All 3 vehicles in our fleet have been pummeled by road debris: The TSX on the way home from the dealer got pelted with gravel from a dumptruck and later stove burners blew off from the back of a pickup and tore-up the grille and hood, Teggy was slammed with a large sheet of ice from a truck-trailer (over $2000 in damage), and the Insight took a direct hit from roofing material from a big rig (luckily only the license plate and frame took the brunt).
So my Wife and I are driving along at night on Saturday, in the Insight (on I-470 here in Lee's Summit where the stove burner incident happened), when bam! A pickup truck lost something. In the 1 second of brain processing time, I hit the brakes and went for the right shoulder. It was a full-sized arm chair! Meanwhile behind us, the following car wasn't stopping quick enough (now on the shoulder as well), so we went for the grass and allowed braking distance for them. We bumped along, hit the gas and made it back onto the highway. The pickup was backing up to go back and get the chair. So the guy is going to walk onto the highway to get it? I hope the police got there a the same time.
My message to everyone carrying crap around the Kansas City area (or anywhere) secure your load!!!!
At 60 that chair would have deployed the airbags, and could have entered the cabin + other resultant accidents.
</rant>
RH77