The Globe and Mail has a story about a driver  on the QEW near Toronto who was killed by a piece of scrap metal that flew up off the road and went through his windshield. The car scraped up against a guard rail before it stopped, but by the time the police showed up just a few moments later he was dead. Investigators later determined that the piece of metal hit him in the forehead, killing him instantly.

This is eerily similar to something that happened to my uncle a couple of years ago. He was driving along the QEW when a piece of rebar ripped through the bottom of his car and tore through the passenger’s seat. Fortunately, my uncle wasn’t hurt and there wasn’t anyone else in the car, though his car was quite damaged.

I regularly see junk that’s fallen off someone’s car or truck lying at the side of the highway. Usually, the junk is well out of the way, sometimes it’s being picked up by the driver it belongs to. But every now and then I come across a piece that’s a bit too close to the lanes. In those cases, I call *OPP (*677), a free call from cell phones in Ontario, and report it to the police so that someone can clean it up. If you see junk on the highway, please let the police know so that it can be cleaned up. Who knows – maybe your call will prevent someone else getting hurt or killed.