Was driving on the freeway, about 60mph. Didn't notice any cars around me, but all of a sudden heard a loud bang, and saw a flash off to one side. I didn't see any other cars around on my side of the freeway, but there were others going by in the opposite direction. It sounded pretty loud, even through the glass, so I don't think it was somebody shooting at me.

My best guess is somebody tossed an M80 or other extremely loud explosive out of a car and it happened to go off right next to me. I suppose a truck backfire on the opposite side might have generated the same kind of bang, but have a tough time explaining the flash that way.

I didn't stop. At the time I had two thoughts: First, somebody's shooting at me and I sure as hell don't want to stop here right now. Second (a moment or two later) was that I had just picked up a few boxes of 12 guage birdshot to take to the range later this week, and I wonder if one of the shells went off in the trunk for some reason? By the time I stopped, I was pretty convinced it was neither of the above and came up with my alternate theory. An examination of the trunk pretty conclusively proves that nothing blew up in there.

Going to have to watch the news and see if there's a rash of people reporting stuff blowing up on/around their cars on the freeways. And if there is, I can honestly say I hope the fuckers who are doing it manage to blow themselves up.

 

What freeway were you on? Damn, LA is just gettin too weird. Did you examine the outside of your TSX? Any damage or trace? If it wasn't a backfire and it was an intentional act then whoever did it needs to be or, as you said, wind up with some missing fingers and damaged ears form the chit exploding in their hand.

 

Are you sure you don't have a flat tire?

 

are you sure it wasn't a semi truck tire or some other big tire blowing up? cause I was riding my motorcycle on the interstate a while ago and a semi right in front of me had a blow out and the bang and flash about threw me off it was so bad (all the rubber chunks hitting me didn't help either ) don't know, sounds kinda like what you were describing...

 

must've been a cg owner messing with you. anyway, good to hear everything is alright (that we know of).

 

I examined the car completely, no problems that I can see.

I had very briefly thought about a tire blowout on the car, because earlier in the day I had a tire repaired, but the tire repaired was on the wrong side (had been the right rear, now moved to the front) and a blowout wouldn't explain the flash.

Same problem with a truck blowout. The noise from those things can be incredible, but how to explain the flash??? Unless it was one of the real bad ones where pieces of the rim impact the pavement and can spark, which I guess is possible.

In thinking about it though, another real possibility would be a backfire on a motorcycle. The noise would be right, and there are plenty of modified Harleys and such around here that have small to nonexistent air filters. I live right near a bunch of bike dealers/modder and I've actually seen the engines do this on their lots.

This was on the 405 going south. Just before I got to the Olympic/Pico exit where I got off to check out the car.

 

Sounds about right, especially since you've seen this phenomena before. It would definitely explain the bang and the flash that you saw. Glad to hear that you're okay and that it wasn't a shooting. The freeways are crazy out here in LA, and we certainly don't need any more weird sheit mucking it up.

 

i hope it wasn't anything done intentionally by some punk kid.

s. california is seriously getting out of control. today, i was stuck on the 101 freeway for i dont even know how long. it turned out there was a "suspicious" looking backpack/package on the freeway so the bomb squad shut both side of the freeway!!! i was on the other side of the freeway where nothing was wrong. it turned out to be a bag full of batteries.

of course, its better to be safe than sorry.

 

Just down Lincoln Blvd from where I live there's a whole showroom of modded Harleys with open-barrel carbs, no intake filters and straight pipes. Dumb, but definitely would maximize performance. I've seen them tuning them outside and they can definitely get loud bangs and flames coming out of both ends of the engine...

Nothing on the news about people having things blow up around them on the freeways. Suspect I over-reacted to a freak occurance.

Having just repaired a tire and having a trunk with over 1000 rounds of ammo in it brought all sorts of possibilities to mind right away.

 

Hmm.. this sounds like a transformer, the ones used step down electricity that is brought to your homes, blowing up on the side of the rode. I'm not sure if people put transformers near highways. But I know that when they blow, there's a real loud bang accompanying a pretty blinding flash of light.

 

Hmmm, now that you mention it, right along the road, on that side of the road, there is an electric substation, a DWP work yard, and there are often transformers placed in the open areas adjacent to the freeways, precisely because they can't do much damage if they explode there. (Should have thought of this. The power substation and related paraphanalia is right behind my gym, and I had been parked right next to it just before all this happened.) With all the rain we had up until a week ago, there actually have been quite a few problems on this side of town, even though it's pretty dry now.

Maybe an altogether ordinary occurance.

 

Oh, that explains it. Damn UCLA students. :shakehead

 

Yeah. I used to go to grad school there. For six months I lived close to campus surrounded by undergrads, then I broke my lease and got the hell out of the neighborhood. Damn ricers.

 

Didn't I see this in L.A. Story? It is spring, after all...

 

Hunting season on the LA freeways doesn't start until the first day of spring, which is March 20th. I suppose there could be some pre-season poachers out there though.

 

damn commies and their mines...

 

Maybe I should mount a Claymore on the front grill? That would be cool.

 

What's wrong we us UCLA students?!?! Haha, well, Alumni at least.

 

lol. Just

jlukja, who went to USC.

 

my scapegoats too.

 

I think you might've found what happend cause i'm an electrician and i've actually worked on these transformers back in high school (they were for the street lights but there's actually a bunch more for different things) but although i've never seen one blow up i've fixed a few damaged ones and i could tell there was a lot of fire/exploding involved when they do go so a ground fault or short circuit is a good possibility with the rain and all... if you drive by again you'll probably see some damage unless it's been fixed already

 

Nothin but love here. Actually, 2 of my exes went to SC. Wait... maybe that's why they're exes...

 

you sure you didn't put in some sorta kick-ass jet engine components ?
like some sorta "spitfire" mod ?

 

First post

 

You've all overlooked the obvious: massive flatulence.
Oh, but that wouldn't explain the sparks. (What? Of course it would. Silly rabbit.)