Vid also sort of reminded me of a trip I made a long time ago... I was driving an old station wagon towing a u-haul (and not blocking traffic!), and I even had a long following distance from the guy ahead of me. He was driving some sort of jeep, and suddenly just twitched the wheel a bit, and drove right over what looked like a microwave or toaster oven laying in the middle of the road. I had only a couple of seconds to think about it, and since I was towing a fairly heavy load and the car was at max weights, I figured I didn't have time to switch lanes, plus I was in fairly heavy traffic and didn't have time to clear left or right to do a safe lane change. I tried to remember which side of the car the gas tank was on, and leaned the car the other way a bit. My front end cleared the object, but...
I guessed wrong. The rear axle cleared the object but the gas tank was just a tad lower on that side due to the vehicle load, and it ripped a huge hole in the bottom of my gas tank. If I'd leaned the other way, my car would have cleared it ok and trailer would have hit the object and probably survived since it was one of those overbuilt u-haul ones. As it was, I dumped a full tank of gas on the freeway (no fireball that I could see, too bad since it would have been spectacular) and had just enough fuel in the fuel line to make it to the shoulder before the engine quit.
Of course it was a Friday evening at around 6pm, so all the shops were going to be closed... AAA to the rescue! They found a tow driver who happened to be a part owner in a little family owned shop. He spent Friday evening calling all the wrecking yards in town, and found a compatible tank, and then put it on my car himself Sat morning. Total cost for the tank and quick installation, including a $40 tip, was $250. The tow was free courtesy of AAA membership. Nice guy, saved me from a long and painful weekend.
