What's the scariest shit that's ever happened to you in this industry?
Posted by PrivatePilot9@reddit | Truckers | View on Reddit | 99 comments
Almost 30 years in for me now, seen some shit. Some of it is funny now looking back on it, some of it not so much.
But two things that stick in my mind, one still scares me all these years later as it could have ended badly, the other, it's a funny story to share now that scared the shit out of me in the moment.
\- I390 south, headed south out of Rochester NY. It was a much quieter road back then so the CB was quiet that night. Conditions were poor and trending worse, but there was still water spraying from passing traffic so I knew the roads weren't freezing at least. But, crested a grade, started down, and halfway down...black ice and felt the drives start to break traction. Clutched in to avoid the drives from torque braking into a jackknife. Touched the brakes and the trailer immediately headed for the rhubarb - this was the days before ABS being commonplace so trailers locked up easily. Let off the brakes, trailer eventually got back in line. Tried to let it roll out but then other cars started to do 180's and 360's ahead of me and other drivers were also clearly struggling keeping things straight. Headlights in the lanes ahead from cars now facing backwards in the ditch and on the guardrails.
Touched brakes again, I hear the drives almost lockup. Trailer sliding again. Off the brakes. On the brakes. Off the brakes. Steering. Sliding. Managed to not gain any speed at least, but didn't loose much. Got to the bottom where the shit show was in full effect with all the 4 wheelers and 1 stopped semi and threaded the needle through it all. Slowed down and got onto the shoulder on the flat, got off at the next exit, called it a night. Had to change underwear.
Another one....
\- Shut it down in one hell of a snowstorm somewhere. Only parking I could find left was at the onramp portion of a pickle park, so I took what I could find. Was under a street light, so visible and secure at least. Crawled into the bunk in my cabover and went to sleep, set my alarm for 4 hours to get up and see if it had cleared as I remember I needed to be somewhere on a schedule. Alarm went off at 4 hours. For those who have never driven one, on an oldschool cabover, when you open the curtains and put an arm out onto the doghouse to crawl out, you're basically in a driving position relative the windshield. Groggilly woke up, pulled curtains open, only to see the "Star Wars Hyperdrive" scene through the windshield - the snow was so heavy and the wind was so strong that it was blowing it directly at the front of the tractor, & with that streetlight right overhead making it look like headlights, for a few seconds my brain was convinced that I was rolling down the highway at 60mph without me in the drivers seat. I literally dove out of the bunk reaching for the red and yellow to pull them out. Took my brain a few seconds to wake up and realize WTF was happening. I laughed about it after it was said and done, but holy hell did it scare me in the moment.
Have had a few other issues with people jumping on to the tractor or trying to open trailer doors going through Detroit in the old days when the bridge dumped you out into the bad area of town before you reached the interstate, but nobody stayed on long enough when instead of stopping, I sped up. Other stupid stuff, but all in all, nothing super bad, lucky I guess.
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