i was followed by what i assume was a police helicopter coming out of las vegas. it was the middle of the night, i was driving straight from ca to il in a very shitty 70s toyota. they had their giant spotlight on me but i never stopped, and no squad made any attempt to contact me. eventually they just peeled away and disappeared.

Not on the highway, but on a backroad a few weeks back…

I drove on a small back road in the rural parts between Stockholm and Norrtälje in Sweden, one of the many twisty turny roads going through forrests and between farms all across Uppland. (If you are ever in Stockholm during summer, with access to a car and have time to spare, I can absolutely recommend an evening drive on the backroads)

Anyway, as I drove through the bright summer evening, I approached a field where a older man and a dog was watching out intently toward the field, my car was in electric mode so it was quiet, as I drove past I looked out on the sunset lit field, and saw a cat, it was a big cat, but a cat…

I didn’t think much about it but 15 sec later it hit me…

There is only one kind of cat that big in Sweden, a Lynx!

The cat I saw had the same color and everything!

Sadly there was no place to stop and turn around or park, and I didn’t have my camera with my awesome super telezoom (100-400mm) with me so I could only keep driving.

Lynx’s are very shy but they still live in the area, they are my favourite big cat animal, despite have a stupid looking tail.

Then two fridays ago, I was driving very late on another back road, I took it extra slow and careful since I had recently got a (deserved) speeding ticket, but still only saw a blur of the badger that decided to cross the road just infront of my car, busted my bumper but little else…

Semi truck lost an entire wheel and tire in front of me at night on the 405 freeway ~2006 driving in the Alameda area south of LA. The wheel and tire managed to ramp up and over the center K-rail divider and into an oncoming car at full speed. I was in the fast lane. I thought I was far enough away as I saw the entire thing unfolding from the moment the wheel came loose. The car that hit the wheel was like something out of Hollywood special effects. The wheel smashed the front in with tremendous force and sent the car airborne with the trunk coming up over the hood in an end over flip. It did this as it ran up the K-rail from the opposing side and was timed so that it was almost entirely above the height of the K-rail with the brightest beam of headlights illuminating through my side window like someone briefly shining a flashlight directly inside. It felt like slow motion and surreal with stuff flying everywhere. The only thing that registered during and immediately after was that the car was coming over that rail and into me. I was super shaken up for a minute or two. Enough to pull off the road and contemplate life for a minute. It wasn’t until the next day that I saw something had hit the hood of my car and left a small dent and a few scratches, but I painted cars at the time, so no big deal.

The guy that disabled me in 2014 made a u-turn on a hill, in a blind turn from an illegally double parked perspective, directly into a passing SUV with a bicycle just behind them. The passing SUV never reacted and with the turn of the road and SUV in front of me that I had just dropped behind in order to pass this double parked king-of-clowns too important for laws, I had no warning. I never imagined that “king-of-clowns” was an intellectual mastermind level in comparison to this Ace of Spades dumb enough to drive directly into a passing vehicle in a place where it is not even legal to make a left turn from a driveway. He got a DUI two days later, while I was in the ICU under critical watch, while driving his wife’s car.

Back in 2016 I was driving along a highway just after a wildfire had swept through the area; was one of the first cars let through.

We had to slow to a crawl because sections of the highway had melted away. Some closed off sections were still bubbling.

Some fence posts at the side of the highway were burned away at the bottom but still present at the top, held up by the fence wire.

Crews were at the side of the road with picks, shovels and rototillers extinguishing the last of the flames, while dark smoke still rose as far as the eye could see before and behind that stretch of highway.

That fire was caused by a stray cigarette. The result was apocalyptic.

Usual one first: back in 2010 a friend and I rented a car from NC to NJ last minute to catch another buddy’s wedding. Rental agency gave me an odd look when I declined the insurance and I got one of those chilling epiphanies where something seemed wrong. Anyway, we’re coming back from NJ going 80 on the freeway in middle of nowhere Virginia and my friend was driving, me in the passenger seat. Guardrails on both sides of the road in a forest. 5 pointer comes casually walking into our lane from the one on the right. My friend saw it too late. Honestly a good thing, he only had enough reaction time to jostle the steering wheel slightly to the left, not even brake. We dodged that bucker by inches. Car insurance be damned, it would have probably ended me.

More bizarre ones:

• The handlebar on my motorcycle broke off, and I went down quick on a freshly plowed road, 18 wheeler behind me was barely able to stop in time. He helped me up and then chucked my bike into a snowbank like it was nothing.
• Saw a semi get blown over by a gust of wind on 81 in western VA
• about 2 months ago I saw an entire desk fly off of the back of a junkers trailer on I-40 just west of Asheville. I thought for sure it was gonna hit the car in front of me but the desk did this brilliant upright spin off into the shoulder. The lady driving the junker was none the wiser. Secure your loads y’all.
• not a freeway, but I was turning left from this mountain backroad as a semi turned right onto the road I was on. The shoulder on that side had a drop off and the guy misjudged the turn. I got to see the whole cab lift into the air right beside me in my peripheral, freaked me the fuck out and I barreled to the right shoulder quick. When all was done and it seemed safe enough, I got out and checked on the guys then called highway patrol. The driver and his buddy were a bit in shock from the whole situation but otherwise OK.

I once got passed by two speeding DeLoreans. I ended up catching up to them when we all hit a traffic jam.

Lots of road head. Feel like that was more common 30 years ago. Probably too risky with cell phones and dash cams getting your license plate.

In Thailand I saw a moped with a family of about 7 (not even uncommon), and a bus making a three point turn in the middle of majorly busy roads in Bangkok.

I saw two sports cars aggressively racing each other on the interstate, and then a few minutes later I saw one of the drivers was propelled through his windshield maybe 50 feet. I assumed that used to be a man, but I couldn’t make out the shape of his body from the mangled pile of flesh.

Where I live it’s common to see dead deer on the side of the highway. One time though a large carcass was missing it’s head, just a bloody stump. I pictured folks commuting on their way to work and seeing a crazed hillbilly sawing of the head of this beast. Of course I don’t know how that’s how it played out but I like to think so.

Just remembered another. A truck directly in front of me was hauling a very large, very full dumpster. The kind where the door is on the end for easy access. The door was chained but swayed a tiny bit when it hit a bump and a rat dropped out and skidded along the highway. Poor guy

Years ago, on a highway/motorway in England. A mini passed me at speed, and after I turned the next bend in the road, I found said mini upside down on the side of the road. Its occupants were either sitting down or wandering around confused. Various other cars stopped to help but I don’t recall if any were hurt. I was trying to help the confused wanderer.

One time I got stuck behind a huge semi-truck full of dead cows for 45 minutes. It smelled atrocious. The stench was so strong that it gave me a headache and changed my mood. The smell of death and decay is quite overwhelming when it is that powerful.

Was on the way home early and was coming up on an SUV that seemed hesitant at a major highway interchange between three highways at once….they stopped in their lane towards the middle of the road. Completely stopped. On a 65mph highway. I got over since they were in my lane and of course honked because wtf? Still blown away that someone would stop on a highway. They are lucky it was not rush hour quite yet.

About half the cab of a big rig hanging over the lane I was driving in.

880 North in California, early 2000’s around 2AM. South of Oakland driving in the fast lane, it was foggy and I was going a bit to fast. Then I started noticing a whole bunch of weird stuff all at once; 20+ cars pulled over on the shoulder with a cop car in front of them, small rocks? all over the road that rapidly became chunks of concrete a few inches in on a side, a whole ass sideways car — at this point I’m slowing and pulling out of the fast lane, as I finish the lane change I look back ahead just in time to see the cab of the big rig dangling over the fast lane from the other side of the freeway. It just appears out of the fog, I’m not sure my car would have cleared it if I had still been in the left lane. It had punched right through the concrete median (the rocks all over the freeway were debris from the collision). The southbound side of 880 is higher there, so it was at least 4-6 feet above the ground on my side.

Bonus: A different big rig with a 25 foot aluminum ladder stuck on one of the trailers feet. It was shooting a roster tail of white sparks another 15 feet, skipping around and making quite a bit of noise. Got a good look as I passed and it had clearly been hooked for a while, it was ground down a few inches where it was making contact.

I was driving from Bakersfield to LA and pulled off the highway to get some gas. It was one of those exit ramps that goes down lower than the highway. I’m sitting at the light waiting to turn left and go under the highway, when a car comes flying off the highway upside down. It is airborne and goes right over top of my car. It hits the ground, slides until it hits the other side of the road and somehow rolls back onto its wheels. It then tries to take off but just crashes into fence and stops. A few moments later a parade of police cars came hauling ass down the exit ramp. I just drove straight back onto the highway and stopped at the next gas station.

The remains of two people all over the interior of their convertible. It happened literally seconds ahead of me and I had to pass within a foot of it on the driver’s side.

The image hasn’t left my mind in over 20 years.