Back in '91 I was visiting Florida and got a Ford Taurus rental from Budget -- decent enough car. Driving from Orlando to Tampa on I4 in heavy traffic, I saw in my lane a road snake -- a truck tire tread that had delaminated. Traffic had me boxed in and I had no maneuvering room so I ran over it. Aside from a think on the underside there seemed no ill effects.
A few minutes later an older Ford LTD with 4 people in it pulls alongside me and starts waving at me, gesturing that I should pull over. Fortunately there was an exit right ahead and I pulled off onto the ramp well away from the interstate. The LTD pulled over next to me. I got out to see a puddle of gasoline forming under the Taurus -- the tire tread had severed the fuel return line and gas was pumping out all over the place. The folks in the LTD were a family of locals who were offering to help. They drove to a phone and called Budget for me. After a while as I was waiting, a state trooper came by and was not at all helpful, trying to tell me I couldn't park there -- not that I was about to move the car at that point. After he understood that he just told me to be careful, as this wasn't a good area, and drove off. Lovely.
After perhaps an hour, a tow truck arrived from Budget along with a Dodge Dynasty as a replacement. The Dynasty was a lousy car compared to the Taurus, but I was just glad to get the hell out of there at that point. In thinking back any number of bad things could have happened to me in that incident, and I'm just lucky nothing did.
