Watch out for loose junk in your truck bed

I was pulling a flat deck trailer to a auction once with some stuff on it that was ratchet strapped to the trailer. The bouncing down the road caused the stuff to move and the ratchet strap came loose. Then it went under the wheel of the trailer and made a heck of a noise as it ripped apart. The trailer fender got a little bent and the strap was junk but, thankfully nothing serious got damaged.

I guess I got lucky. I was using a ratchet strap to hold a box in the back of my truck, got on the freeway and I could see the loose end of the strap had come untied, I knew in five miles there was a rest stop but I only made it about one mile before I heard a loud bang. Yep it wrapped around the driveshaft and broke the strap it also damaged the truck box but nothing else was damaged.

That is why I have a tonneau cover.

We had a salesman that left some chains and binders in his work truck and went thru a car wash. The chain got hooked to a brush and went round and round beating the **** out of the roof back window and bed. Thinking about it again makes me smile.

Good heads up. But the story has it as an RV accident! Not at all. It was a mishap that could've been avoided by putting things away.

Years ago at the dealer we had a Dakota come in with about 3 feet thick of chainlink fence wrapped around the driveshaft. Supposedly the kid got drink and thought it would be fun to off road through a golf course. Only he got hung up on he fence on the way out. It ruptured the file tank, thankfully it didn't ignite the gas somehow. It took hours with snips just to get he chain link fence out from under he truck!

Just the other day I had a strap in the truck that worked its way outside the back tailgate. The thought of it wrapping around the drive shaft occurred to me. Now I know the results, wont leave them back there anymore.

It's really not a freak accident. Dodge dealers saw so many of these that the factory started installing a plastic guard between the back of the cab and the front, bottom edge of the bed.

I once could not avoid a large piece of plastic on the expressway. It wrapped around my trucks driveshaft. I had to pull over at the next exit and cut it off with a knife.