This is the grille of this week's ride. It's a clear sunny day today, the roads are as dry as the Mojave desert, and this car was spotless when I took it out. I was planning on getting some pictures while it was still squeaky clean.
What you're seeing is the result of a couple of kilometres behind an evacuation pumper truck that was slowly leaking some kind of muddy fluid (I don't want to think about what it had evacuated) from a hose on the back. Between traffic front and back, I had no choice but to follow the truck. Which brings me to today's rant: I'm bloody sick and tired of being the recipient of stuff that does not stay in or on the vehicles it is meant to stay in or on.
I realize that construction areas, job sites and other similar areas are dirty places. And I realize that it isn't always possible to scrub a vehicle before it leaves such a place. On the other hand, I don't see why it's acceptable that my trip down the highway will involve little chunks of cement banging against my windshield from a cement truck, or chips in my paint courtesy of the gravel truck ahead of me, or my new wash job lasting less than an hour because fluid is leaking out of a truck.
"It can't be helped" should not be an excuse. I pay good money for glass, paint and car washes, and even if the construction company really needs to get that new block of houses built, I don't see why I should have to bear the brunt of the operation. I don't know what the answer is to keeping all this debris off the road, but there should be one -- and since they're the ones causing the problem, I think it's up to these trucking companies to find the solutions.
