A giant industrial spool for fiber optic cable fell off a truck and went cruising down the Houston highway yesterday. Strangely, it’s the third time a spool has fallen off a truck in the last two months, so get your conspiracies ready.
The first spool incident in Houston occurred on Oct. 25, followed by two spool simultaneously attacking traffic again on Nov. 12. This third spool fell off an 18-wheeler and when tumbling towards traffic, including a school bus full of children, the Kansas City Star reports.
Here’s video of The Spool:
In the previous two incidents, police cited the truck drivers for not knowing the height of their loads, as well as having overweight loads. Both of the previous incidents occurred when the trucks hit the same railroad bridge on I-10. Police indicated the driver in yesterday’s incident will also likely be ticketed.
Luckily, the children and everybody else avoided injury yesterday. One woman, driving a VW Beetle, didn’t even realize the spool had hit her car until later. Here’s more on her experience from the Star:
When Marie Cervantez saw that behemoth spool of fiber optic cable rolling toward her on the highway in October, she thought she was going to die.
[...]
“Luckily, nobody got hit from that. Everybody stopped. But I kept going! Because I didn’t know it hit me, until I noticed it,” she told the TV station. “I’m not afraid to die, but I don’t want to die like that.”
Good for you, Marie. I am most certainly afraid to die from taking a giant spool of wire to the face on my daily commute. Truck drivers, do better.