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Flying axe crashes through car windshield

Posted at 2:26 PM, Jul 30, 2014
and last updated 2014-07-30 14:36:01-04
Ax crash

Axe flies through car windshield (PHOTO: Massachusetts State Police)

TOPSFIELD, Mass. – Secure your load and don’t exceed the speed limit. Those are two lessons Massachusetts State Police hoped people would learn after an axe flew off the back of a landscaper’s dump truck and crashed through the windshield of a car traveling behind it.

The scary incident happened about 11 a.m. Wednesday on Interstate 95 in Topsfield, north of Boston.

“Thankfully, the axe only went halfway through the windshield,” Massachusetts State Police wrote on Facebook. “The passenger who is partially seen in the photo was shaken up (who wouldn’t be?) but not injured.”

State police cited the truck driver for failure to secure cargo and passed along two important lessons:

1.) Contractors and all other motorists are reminded to properly secure items they are transporting, including tools, building materials, bicycles, canoes, luggage, furniture, beach chairs, and the like.

2.) The man whose car was struck was obeying the speed limit, driving about 65 mph. If he had been speeding, the increased velocity of his car would have increased the power of the axe’s impact, meaning it could very well have gone through the glass and injured his passenger. Please remember those lessons. We are very thankful that this situation did not have a worse ending.