During the mid-20th century, truck drivers earned the well-deserved nickname “White Knights of the Highways.” Get a flat on the interstate, but can’t manage to remove the tightened lug nuts? No worries. A kind-hearted trucker would stop and do the dirty deed for you. Trying to deal with an overheated radiator? A semi truck driver hauling cargo would likely pull his rig over to help in no time.
Times change, of course. Today’s truck drivers face frenetic delivery schedules and near-constant monitoring by dispatch and trucking company managers. These and other societal factors eliminated truckers’ ability and inclination to stop and render aid to motorists in distress.
However, the recent spate of arctic weather that dipped down into some southern states brought out the Good Samaritan instincts from bygone days in many semi truck drivers.
Snowstorm Caught Drivers Unprepared
When winter came calling during the first week of January, state officials in Virginia seemed ill-prepared to assist the hundreds of motorists left stranded on I-95. For nearly a day, both sides of the interstate were lined with vehicles that couldn’t move.
The untreated roads got the best of drivers in the snowstorm. Fourteen-inch accumulations of snow and underlying ice caused a pileup of at least six semi trucks on Jan. 3. Drivers of passenger vehicles slid out of their lanes onto the berm or into ditches. It was obvious to all that nobody was going anywhere soon.
By nightfall, temperatures plummeted far below freezing. According to AccuWeather, Fredericksburg, Virginia, recorded an overnight low of 16 degrees Fahrenheit. With no way to re-fuel, the stranded motorists were faced with leaving their vehicles on for warmth and running out of gas or risking freezing in the frigid cold.
Families with young children had no food, water or blankets in their vehicles. They were desperate for help. Media outlets reported truckers moving from car to car, sharing supplies with the grateful occupants.
One truck driver told a reporter who also got stuck in the day-long traffic jam that the situation was “pretty severe” and likely the worst conditions she’d experienced. Even Virginia’s Sen. Tim Kaine got stuck in the jam. He tweeted during the ordeal that he had been on his way to the Capitol before getting stranded on the interstate for 19 hours.
For the duration of the emergency, truck drivers instinctively responded just as their predecessors did decades ago. Once again, the White Knights of the Highway provided aid and comfort to their fellow motorists.
Sources: insider.com, msn.com
Just like during the pandemic, society is all too happy to reap the rewards from truck drivers’ dedication but instantly forget afterwards and go right back to disrespecting and even undermining those same once-proclaimed heroes of the highways.