Ever entered the Interstate or Freeway and got behind a gravel truck?   Where I live, the entrance ramp is close to the quarry where tons and tons (literally) of gravel is transported to cities some 30 miles away.  The majority of these trucks  do not have any kind of a tarp on them.   Plus, they are loaded high (probably over capacity) and the pile goes higher than the truck walls.

Guess what happens to the cars immediately behind them and even to the side at 65-70 miles per hour?

Ding ding ding.   That’s not the sound of a bell, thats the sound of pebbles ruining your new car’s paint job.

Can anything be done?  Apparently these companies think they are immune to lawsuits simply by saying “the gravel fell off, hit the pavement and then bounced back up.”  Unless you actually tell them you saw the rocks fall directly off the truck and hit your vehicle, they won’t even talk to you.

So, I emailed the #1 gravel hauler on the route from Ames to Des Moines, Des Moines Paving and Asphalt, and asked that they add tarps or other containment methods to their vehicles.   Here is what I wrote:

Hello,

I live in Ames and use the 13th street on ramp to get to my place of business in Des Moines.  Over the past several years I have witnessed trucks from your company carrying huge amounts of rocks and stones from the Ames quarry and delivering them to your location(s) in Des Moines.   Every time I get behind one of your trucks, it is evident they are a) overflowing and b) losing rocks from the top of the pile ranging in size from pebbles to golf ball size.

As the purchaser of a new car recently, the situation has become even more infuriating, since rocks from your vehicles bounce and hit my vehicle, leaving  dents and chipped paint on my new car.  These are not rocks that fall off, hit the road, and bounce back up (although that has happened as well) – these are rocks that fall off the top of the overloaded cargo and directly hit my vehicle.

I am writing today to implore you to begin using tarps or otherwise securing your cargo while on the Interstate traveling at high speeds.   In today’s society, it wouldn’t take much to create a public outcry that would accomplish this through state law, but I am hoping your company will merely “do the right thing” and respect and appreciate that in doing your day-to-day business, you are at the very least damaging public property, and at the extreme creating a recipe for disaster should a stone from your trucks break a window and cause a severe accident and possibly death.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Troy Rutter

We’ll see how they respond.  Are you upset at this complete disregard for personal property?   Comment here and tell me your experiences with gravel companies and damage to your vehicle.  Better yet, leave a comment, then write a letter to a gravel company, representative, city council, whomever.

We pay a lot of money for our vehicles – its time we tell companies like this how we feel.

[tags]gravel, trucking, personal property[/tags]