PHOENIX — It’s a strange sight to see: a white sports car with four, five — even six mattresses strapped on top. After numerous recent reports of the car being spotted around the Valley, ABC15 tracked down the guy behind the wheel.
“This isn’t a joke,” said Casey Day, who owns Pillow Top Express near 40th Street and Baseline Road and makes mattress deliveries throughout the Phoenix area.
“This is what we do for a living, we’re very safe, we consider everybody else on the road,” he said. “We understand this is a serious thing.”
Day said he’s been delivering mattresses in a sports car for around 10 years. He purchased his current car — a 2010 Dodge Challenger — around a year ago and said he would rather use it over a truck for the maintenance and gasoline savings. He runs two latch straps through the interior of the vehicle to fasten the mattresses, and said he’s never had a mattress fall onto the road — but came close, once.
Still, Day said he’s stopped “two to three times a day” by police because of his unusual delivery method.
“They escort me sometimes to the deliveries,” he said. “I’ve actually sold beds to cops before.”
But is it legal? According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, it depends on the load being carried. Different rules apply, but generally speaking, loads can’t extend more than eight-feet wide or more than 11.5-feet above the roadway.
“We want to remind the public to think ahead a little bit,” said Raul Garcia, a DPS spokesman.
You should question, “is this vehicle designed for what I’m trying to do with it?,” he said.
DPS officials told ABC15 they respond to around 1,000 debris-related crashes in Arizona each year. The fine for an item falling onto the roadway — let alone causing a crash — is $250.
Day stands by his method for making deliveries, but acknowledged he’d like to swap for something bigger, at some point.
“Eventually, will we get a truck? Of course we will,” he said.
