[EWerner]

AHHHH!! The picture of that table scares the bejeezus out of me. About three years ago I was driving on I-495 outside of DC, doing about 55 mph, when I encountered one of those spools rapidly zig-zagging its way towards me and my MR2 Spyder. It had fallen off a truck that was doing probably 70 mph. The spool was generally coming right at me, but it's odd shape made it bounce around so that I couldn't tell until the last nanosecond whether to cut left, right or stay in my lane. All the while I had to be mindful of cars in the lanes next to me. I got lucky and made a quick and correct decision to duck to the right. But to this day those spools scare me.

I hope the truck driver was ticketed for having an unsecured load. Here in Minnesota it is a hefty fine. Glad you made it out of that situation.