Close Calls

Getting backed over by a 500,000 lb. Euclid earthmover while I was sitting quietly in Dad's '65 KW. I was looking to my left, waiting for my dump man to wave me over to where we were dumping. With all the noise on the project I never heard him or saw him, I just felt the truck start sliding to the left. When I looked over, all I saw was his rear tire, which was as tall as my truck.

That was the end of my dirt hauling career. Dad traded the Reliance bottom dump in on a 1982 Pete glider kit to resurrect the KW which was totaled.

 

Hauling a 53' and a 28' pup down the KS turnpike, grossing around 120,000 lbs. I was hit by straight line winds from the right. I hit the brakes while turning the steering wheel hard right to maintain my lane. Nothing doing, I was still headed left to the concrete divider wall. I stopped in the left lane, just short of hitting an empty rig that flipped on it's side in front of me.

 

Getting lost outside Augusta Ga. I was looking for a quarry on a two lane road in Nowhere, Ga. Stopped at produce stand along the road and I swear I heard the dueling banjos from the movie Deliverance..... But he was super helpful, even left me turn around in his field.

 

Driving east on I-80 through the Delaware Water Gap a few weeks ago, following a bit of snow. PennDOT hadn't plowed yet but the right lane wasn't bad. The left was snow covered and I was poking along about 45 (speed limit right there at the 309 mile mark is 50 anyway). Got passed by a blue Volvo yanking a dry van who seemed to be in quite a hurry. Around the next curve what do I see but Mr. Hurry sideways across the road, with his trailer doors against the jersey barrier and his tractor nosing the guardrail. Somehow I managed to get stopped without hitting him or folding it up. He got himself out of the roadway and along the shoulder before anyone else came along, fortunately.

I figured that's what I get for working weekends rather than spending time with my family...so now if you want me to work of a weekend it had really better be a compelling offer

 

Oh a few more like the time I got hit by straight line winds head on and it stopped me dead in the road, luckily no traffic. Or coming through Dallas and I see a BROWN cloud a couple miles off coming at us fast. My student is driving and it's started raining so hard you could only see ahead and the wind starts rocking us and she's screaming "I wanna stop" but we can't see beside us and I see blue sky around the curve so nothing I could do but talk her through it. Or going through a ribbon of a dust tunnel in Kansas that you could see from miles away but nowhere to pull over, once your in it you couldn't see the nose of the tractor but you knew the road was straight as an arrow. Poor student was driving, she almost stopped dead in the middle of it and as soon as we got out of it she covers her eyes and starts to cry. I had to slap her arm and remind her "HEY YOUR STILL DRIVING!"

 

What was the disopsition, were you terminated, and or who gave you another chance.

 

Wasn't terminated probably because I held it up, I dunno. The tractor had pretty extensive damage where it slammed into the trailer. There was nothing I could have done about the wind, wasn't on the radio reports and no where to park if I wanted to. That company gave me a chargeable. I quit 6 months later and am now with a local trucking co.

 

I'm really trying to figure out how "straight line winds head on" could stop you "dead in the road"?

Some trucks can drive 100 mph, which in effect is the same as an 100 mph headwind if you are sitting still.
If the headwind was that strong in your case, and even if you slowed to 45 mph, you would still had to have encountered a Category 5 hurricane strength >155 mph headwind for it to "stop you dead in the road". Certainly seems impossible.

 

Having a car run a stop sign at a 60 mph intersection and me swerve in the other lane blaring my train horn it was so close they hit and broke my red flag on the side of my lowboy