black chevrolet

Ladders. Lying in the back of pickup trucks, lying across the racks on utility trucks, dangling off the mounts on stake-side trucks. They're the #1 foreign-object threat to motorcyclists in California, statistically, especially on freeways. And so whenever at a stoplight I roll slowly toward the dusty bumper of Miguel's Landscaping 1-ton Ford (with expired registration), I check carefully to see if there any device firmly attaching the deadly six-foot hunk of aluminum to the truck.

If not, I grimace and change lanes as quickly as possible.

If there are tiedowns, I grimace and change lanes when convenient, or keep a loooong following distance (which has the beneficial side-effect of inviting another vehicle to move in front of me, intercepting the threat).