Who To Call When There’s Debris On The Freeway

Every time I've been in this situation, I wonder who the right people to call are. Here's who you should reach out to if there is debris on Treasure Valley freeways.

Just this year, I've seen a mattress, bags of clothes, a wheel barrow, a wooden pallet... Let's be honest, a lot of people don't tie things down correctly and we end up with stuff on the freeway that could not only be damaging to cars, but in some cases, life threatening. What you don't do is pull over and get out and try to run through the lanes to grab it yourself, but that's pretty self explanatory, right? But what DO you do?

The answer is this: it depends! How much of an emergency is it? Is it something that's on the side of the road and just needs to picked up? Well, in that case, you should reach out directly to the Idaho Transportation Department. This question was answered more extensively by someone from the IDT on Quora: "I work for the transportation department in Idaho. It is our responsibility to remove hazardous debris as soon as possible. That being said, most people don’t have the number to call to have this removed immediately. The best thing to do is call 911. The dispatch will contact the appropriate people to have the hazard removed immediately. In some cases, the State police may be the ones who do this, but the highway department has the proper equipment to take care of these situations."

So while 911 seems to be a bit extreme and this isn't an emergency in the sense that there's already been an accident or someone is already hurt, it's definitely a situation that could quickly lead to those things happening if someone isn't notified. So now you know... You don't have to feel ridiculous calling 911 about a matter of these sorts! And if we don't call because we expect someone else will, who will?