Astounded? When I was in high school they used to show us "always wear your seat belt" videos that went into how much force even a small body creates when you stop it suddenly. It was to debunk the idea that you could just put your arms on the dash board and stop yourself if you were in an accident. They even went into how much force a 10 lbs. child would create if you decelerated from 35mph to 0mph suddenly (to shoot down the idea of "I'll just hold onto my tightly in an accident"). I don't remember the exact physics formulas anymore, but I'm sure someone here does. Anyway, suffice it to say that even something with a small mass creates a TREMENDOUS amount of force in a sudden deceleration, so I can only imagine how much force 41,000 lbs of coil made. I would have been shocked if the load had *not* come loose.

oh my god!

People have said I'm paranoid because whenever I see a load of pipe/cable/logs I'll downshift and speed around them as quickly as possible.

worst fear come true. :( awedamn

True enough but those loads are supposed to take the chance that these things could happen into consideration and they are supposed to be secured so that they can't come loose.

Here is the formula and as I said the loads are suppose to take this into account for average driving situations.