– Motorists on a Florida highway in October 2000 got an unexpected fright when a tractor-trailer carrying 26 dead alligators overturned, spilling the carcasses across the road. The gators were due to be skinned and butchered anyway, so workers simply hauled them up onto a flatbed truck and continued on their way.
– Nooooo! A highway in The Netherlands was closed on May 11, 2005, after an accident that spilled 2,184 cases of Grolsch beer. One officer described the scene as “a sea of beer”.
– In Oregon, USA, in June 2007, a valve broke on a truck hauling animal waste from a processing plant, sending 4,000 gallons of pig blood gushing forth onto the road and into the yards of nearby homes.
– A truck overturned near Salt Lake City, USA, in August, 2005. Onlookers rushed to help, but soon legged it in the other direction when they learned the truck was carrying around 16,000 kgs of explosives. About three minutes later, the truck exploded creating a 30-foot deep crater in the road, blasting chunks out of the canyon wall, setting brush fires, and damaging a Union Pacific rail line.
– A truck spilled more than 500 pounds (226kg) of decomposing animal entrails and hides, pig heads, and outdated processed meat through Arizona, USA. The road was closed for a half-hour and bystanders gagged while a 15-man crew cleaned up the smelly spill.
– Thar She Blows! A 56-foot, 60-tonne sperm whale died on a beach in Taiwan in January, 2004. Researchers wanted the carcass to perform an autopsy and for research, but as it was being transported through the city, gasses built up to a critical level inside the whale and it exploded, spewing whale guts in the street, on the cars and over pedestrians.
– On July 21, 2006, a Tomahawk Cruise Missile fell off a truck and landed in the middle of the highway near the Bronx. Luckily, it wasn’t armed.
– There’s nothing like getting stuck in a major traffic jam early in the morning and being forced to smell breakfast meat the entire time. On April 2, 2009, about 2,000 pounds of raw sausage meat spilled onto a busy road in Savannah, Georgia. To make matters worse, it was also raining at the time, turning the processed fatty meat into a thick, mushy mess which took about four hours to clear.
– On June 11, 2009, an armoured car travelling on I-75 in Detroit, USA, somehow managed to spill bags of cash onto the highway. Local motorists began stopping and scooping up as much cash as possible, scrambling to get the money before the guards could.
– In Colombia, Bogota, on April 20, 2007, a truck overturned when it cornered a turn too fast, spilling almost a tonne of cocaine on the highway. The cocaine had been hidden in the walls and roof of the truck. The driver wasn’t hurt, but probably had a lot of time to contemplate the dangers of speeding while he sat in a prison cell afterwards.
– A truck carrying 12 million honeybees hit a wall on a highway ramp in California on December 15, 2004. The truck was carrying 480 bee colonies to pollinate an almond crop when it hit a wall, sending the bees swarming. The Las Vegas Fire Department eventually had to douse the bees with water to kill them.
–Twenty five penguins, an octopus and some exotic fish were minding their own business in the back of a refrigerated truck while being transported from the Indianapolis Zoo to Moody Gardens in Galveston, Texas when suddenly, they found themselves on the side of the highway. The truck driver had lost control, flipping the truck several times before it ejected its unusual passengers. Sadly, four of the penguins died, but the octopus and fish were thrown clear and found alive in their plastic bags.
– Firefighters in China had a hell of a time cleaning up a highway after a truck loaded with buckets of construction glue crashed into a bus in Chengdu City. They tried using water guns to dilute the glue without success, and it didn’t take long before their spades and brooms became mired in the mess. Onlookers even slipped and got stuck. Eventually, the glue was dissolved with special chemicals.
– A big rig carrying freshly minted nickels from Philadelphia to the Federal Reserve in Miami crashed into another truck in Brevard County, Florida in 2008, spilling US$185,000 (B5.55 million) worth of coins onto the highway. Crews had to use blowers and shovels to up the 3.5 million coins.