"I locked my keys in my truck. Can I use your key?"

Have you ever encountered a truck driver at a truckstop or a rest area or a shipper/receiver who says something to the following effect: "Please help me. I'm retarded, and I locked my keys in my truck. Can I use your key to unlock my truck" ?

I encountered a trucker who said something like this to me today. I've had at least ten truckers in my ten year career ask to use my key to try to unlock their trucks. When a trucker gives me this sob story and asks to use my key to try to unlock their truck, I offer to try to unlock their truck with my key myself. It never works. They always ask me to let them hold my key and jiggle it around to try to unlock their door. But I refuse to hand anyone else my key to my truck.

When I was a trainer, I had one genius student who locked himself out of my truck TWICE while he was my student! Yes, twice. He asked me to give him my key to unlock the truck, and I refused. My student was so irresonsible and untrustworthy with his key that he locked himself out of my truck twice. There is no way on God's Green Earth i was going to trust him with my key! So I would walk to the truck and unlock it for him rather than hand him my key.

I've been a trucker for ten years, and I have never locked my keys in my truck. Why? The only way I ever lock my truck is by using the key to lock the truck. I never press the button on the door to lock the truck's door. After I step out of my truck and I am standing on the ground outside of my truck, I hold the key in front of my face and make sure I have that key in my hand BEFORE i even shut the door. If I don't have the key in my hand, I get back in the truck and get the key before i step out of the truck again. If the only way that you ever lock your truck's door is by using the key to lock the door, you cannot lock your key in your truck because your key is required to lock the door in the first place. I think that this is something that all trainers should try to teach their students. I tried to teach that student that locked himself out of my truck twice this information, and, unfortunately, it just went in one ear and out the other ear.