I can see this happening. Several years ago, I was coming out of Montgomery, AL on an emergency network server call, northbound on I-85. Rush hour. There was a flatbed rig loaded with logs two vehicles in front of me, and a passenger car between. A splinter of log maybe eight feet long and as big around as your forearm snapped off one of the logs and hit the road. The car directly in front of me swerved to miss it, but hit it at such an angle that it flipped it in the air like a toothpick. I tapped the brakes just in time - the thing speared my front bumper, broke off, and went flying over my car. When I got to where I was going, I saw that it went through my bumper directly on the driver’s side, and left about six inches of the tip sticking partially out. If I hadn’t braked at that precise microsecond (and I was doing about 80 at that moment), it would have come right through my windshield and made a Viking kebab out of me. The auto body shop my insurance company referred me to ended up having to order a new factory bumper and replace it.
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, what a close call. In high school, shortly after getting my driver license, I was driving parallel to one of the holes at our local golf course. An errant ball bounced off the road not far in front of me headed straight for my head. It sailed over the car, just missing the roof.
Later the same year an unsecured sheet of plywood sailed out of a pickup truck in front of me and went over my car. In a slit second, I figured I was going to be decapitated, but me and the car escaped without a scratch.
Nothing like those two incidents has happened in the 52 years since!
I’m glad you were not a Viking kebab. Back in the 90s, I was riding with some pals from fort Riley. We were cruising along minding our own business. A car passed us. There was a broken spike from a farming tractor implement laying on the road. I’d say it was like one of those giant rakes that are mounted in the back of the tractor. I’m. Sure some one here can tell me exactly what it was.
Anyway the car tires pick up the spike and flings it perfectly at us with the sharp side toward us. It hit right under the hood and just at the grill. A few degrees higher and it could have gone thru the windshield and hit the driver square in the chest or face. Close but God was watching out for us.