Freaking people. Nothing near as bad, not even close, as the rest of the stories on this forum, but since it happened to me, I'm reporting it. I'm cruising along a State Highway on the Indian Reservation going the speed limit. It's a 2-lane highway. I'm following behind a truck - at a safe distance - while the truck in front of me is practically camped on the van in front of it's bumper.

Well, I can't see anything in front of these vehicles ahead of me. The truck suddenly slams on his brakes, locks up his wheels, smoke every where, truck starting to jacknife. As I said, I try to always keep a safe distance behind other vehicles for just such reason.

Which doesn't mean I didn't have to hit the brakes - I wasn't tapping them, either, I was shutting the truck down. But, I had plenty of stopping space, didn't have to lock up the wheels, jacknife the truck, etc etc etc.

The driver of the little Chevy 2 door behind me wasn't so lucky. I mean, this guy must have been paying absolutely no attention, because this event with the truck in front of me was already almost over before this guy - smashes into my ICC bumper. More like goes UNDER it.

I take no responsibility for people following too closely behind me. If I have time, I will tap the brakes to give them a clue, I didn't have time this time.

I get out of the truck, afraid of what I might see (I've seen the pics of cars smashed underneath trucks and people getting killed, decapitated, etc) - but upon arrival to the back of the truck, thankfully, nothing NEAR so bad. In fact, it did nothing to my trailer. Scratched paint with the car's green color blended into it - the car - didn't come out so lucky. The driver was fine, but - his car wasn't.

He wanted me to just take off since my truck didn't suffer damage, unfortunately for him, my company said something else: call the police, get a police report, take pictures, get his information, on and on and on. It was a rather extended ordeal out in the middle of nowhere, basically, not too much fun - but at least nobody was killed or even hurt.

You have to file that report Trooper. One of the things that report does is protect YOU, as well as your company!

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good deal , call em to protect yourself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Y'know - in a number of other threads, we've commented a bit on how 4-wheelers and the like drivers suffer from a me-first attitude. Which gets them in trouble like this.

They just don't realize that it's the wrong me first attitude. It shouldn't be "me first in line",it should be "me first in safety". *Always* protect yourself first. Protection of others comes naturally from that.

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Keep the big doors at the back!

Wait till you get out there full time. You will find this same attitude in alot of the truck drivers now.

I was PARKED at a rest area for a couple hour nap(this was before the new HOS). I got up and sat down in my driver seat. About that time some wrinkled up old geezer walks up to my truck and starts pounding on my door, I roll down the window and he starts screaming that I backed into his camper. I screamed back at him that there is no way that I could have backed into his camper because my parking brakes are set and I just woke up. He screams to his wife to "call the police before the driver takes of!!" Of course every one in the rest area is coming to see what was going on. I go look at the front of his camper and yes there is some damage to the front bumper(one of those van looking jobs).In the meantime, I call safety and ask safety man if the gps system can tell when truck is in gear and what gear it is in,etc.. Safety basically said that if you fart in the seat, we will know what you had to eat. I explained to safety man what is going on and that the police are on there way to the rest area. He said when police gets there to have the officer call him direct.Safety man pulled up the report and confirmed that the brakes have been set for the past couple of hours and that I have not released brakes or put truck in gear.Police show up, makes a report,blah,blah,blah.The entire time the old man is screaming and carrying on, insisting that I backed into him.Meanwhile,the wife is sitting there like she was in a Prozac induced high.The cop comes to my truck and I tell him that my safety men wants to talk to him and I handed him my cell phone. After the cop was done talking to my safety man, the cop tears up the report, tells me to have a nice day , gets in his car and drives off. So, I climb in the truck, and leave. I drive a few miles down the road to the truckstop, go in to grab a cup of coffee and a "samich", sitting at the counter is the cop, I sat down next to him and asked him why did he tear up the report. Safety man told him same thing he told me about knowing everything that is going on with the truck and that the truck was never taken out of gear, so it is impossible that I backed into him. I think the old geezer was looking for someone to pay for him a new bumper and some bodywork and my company could afford to fix his camper more than he could afford it.

They were lucky you were there and paying attention, but if were back far enough why did you have to put so much presser on the breaks.

If you see a truck sliding and skidding all over the road - what is going to be YOUR natural reaction/instinct?

Well thank God you had that system in place to back you up. I have seen plenty of 4-wheelers in days past that will get in front of truck and slam on it's brakes, intentionally trying to get the truck to run into them. The lunacy of such action is beyond comprehension since those people doing that could easily be killed.

Yes, I called the police, the report was filed. Actually, I called my manager first, who called the general manager, who called whoever at corporate - on and on. Call the police, get out the accident report kit including taking pictures of everything - the whole 9 yards.