One of my wife’s bridesmaids got killed in 1981 when a brake shoe flew off a semi-truck going the opposite direction. It came through the windshield and hit her right in the head. Her and fiancé were driving back from a wedding in California and were only a few mile from home. They put out an APB on any semi’s that need a brake work but nothing ever came of it.
Wow. Yeah, if it was a fleet vehicle, especially back then, they’d have repaired the brakes back at the truck yard. As much as I live out in the sticks a little, our neighbor runs a trucking business on his property. He owns a lot at the end of our road, and his drivers park the cabs and trailers up there. If anything needs serviced, he has them drive down and pull the cab or trailer right into his repair shop. Unless someone gets a tag number or the name of the business on the door, there’s no way to trace something like that.
Even so it wouldn’t have been the drivers fault his brake pad fell off. There are actual accidents where no one is at fault.
An almost identical incident happened here in northern Virginia about 30 years ago.
In that case, a family was returning from a fishing trip in their pickup truck towing a small boat. They had just crossed the Wilson Bridge on I-95 South coming into Virginia from Maryland. A tractor trailer going north into Maryland on I-95 had a brake failure as it approached the bridge.
The failure resulted in the brake drum exploding and the remains of the brake assembly catching fire. A large, heavy fragment from the drum (maybe 10-15 lbs.) was violently ejected onto the roadway, ricocheted up into the air, arced over the jersey barrier wall separating the opposing lanes of I-95, and struck the southbound pickup’s windshield dead center. The fragment passed through the windshield and struck the mother in the head, killing her instantly. She was sitting between her husband and son, who were untouched.
The police almost immediately found the semi-tractor trailer rig pulled over to the shoulder in Maryland with the driver trying to put out the brake fire.
How awful! A female friend’s fiancee was a tow truck driver. He was called out to tow a car and asked the owner if the cam shaft had been removed. The man said yes and he proceeded down I-95 with the car. It turns out that the cam shaft was still in the car. It dropped onto the road, bounced, and decapitated a man driving his two children home from Philadelphia. His 12 year old daughter had the presence of mind to climb into the front seat and stop the car. God only knows how they cope.
I knew someone killed by something flying out of the back of a truck hauling tires. Think it was a tire if I remember correctly. Went right through the window and killed him.