Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Another unique risk of 3-wheelers

Yesterday I was bowling along the M62 managed motorway section. There was a decent volume and the overhead signs were indicating 60mph and the hard shoulder was open as a lane. In other words nowhere to hide if there is a problem.

The car-in-front's draft threw up an empty builders merchant square sack up from the inter-lane dotted line into the middle of my lane. With nowhere to manoeuvre the sack wrapped around the my front-end.

With a closed hard shoulder I wondered fleetingly if it was safer to drive to the next refuge/sliproad. I never had time to come to any conclusion as clouds of black smoke billowed from the front end and made the decision for me.

I had to stop on the "hard shoulder" (now lane 1) with my hazards to pull the now-burning plastic-weave sack off my exhausts.

Happily all the traffic using the hard-shoulder as lane 1 were really awake and changed lanes early. Off course the clouds of black smoke might have provided more obvious early-warning than my hazard-lights!

'Twas an interesting experience all told.

Sounds like a very close encounter. Although you describe another peril of the 3 wheeler I panic at any object on the road when driving any Mog.
My previous Roadster had the dreaded low sump and bell housing, a cigarette butt would have jammed under that car.

Come on, a cigarette packet perhaps!!

Glad you and your Mog are OK!!

Did the "Traffic Officers" monitoring the CCTV immedeatly return the lane to hard shoulder use? I'll be they didn't. The lane is supposed to be switched back to "hard shoulder" status within 90 seconds in case of a serious emergency, and a car on fire certainly should be considered as such.

If they ignored it I'd probably make a formal complaint, it should all be recorded, but the cynic in me says I'll bet it has been wiped.

Oh, and how much time did it take to properly clean up the motorwhen you got home?

This happened to me while driving Route 100 in Vermont. A normally quiet road but there was one errant shopping bag wrapped itself around my right exhaust. Smoke and excitement ensued as I hadn't seen it happen but my passenger did. Pulled off immediately and removed what I could. What didn't come off fused to the pipe and has since carbonized. Smelly business!

To be honest I was stopped, out and removed the sack. Checked it was out and flung the sack into the embankment. I was back up to 60 in not much more than 90 seconds!

Of course the embankment may have gone up in flames!

No debris of melted plastic stuck to your engine? Glad you came of good!

Come on Peter....have you never seen the size of the cigarettes they smoke over there?

I am sure these so-called "managed motorways" will lead to serious incidents

The rubbish collection bolts on the bottom of my roadster are a very efficient way of litter collecting, plastic bags wrapped around the exhaust brackets need prompt attention!