Driver Unaware of Accident?

I have first hand experience with this. It is possible to hit a car or be hit by a car and not know it. I was making a delivery at a roofing company here in the Chicago area and was trying to get turned around to get out of the very small lot(tractor trailers had no business being in there but i didn't know that till i was already past the point of no return) and the overhang on my trailer hit a PT Cruiser. I felt nothing and had to back up because i couldn't cut the turn and hit the car a second time moving it about 4 feet, again i felt nothing. When i saw the mangled up car in my mirror i still couldn't believe i hit it until i was a small scratch of blue paint on my trailer. The whole back end of the PT Cruiser was pretty much gone. The funny part of this story is they guy was a roofer for the company i was delivering to, and was not there at the time. The Mgr said that they have been telling him not to park his car there because it makes it hard for trucks to get around, but he kept parking it there because it was only about 1 month old and he didn't want to get any door dings on it. Well I gave him more than a door ding, and when i drive by there every now and then he doesn't park there any more.

 

Several years ago in Seattle I was bringing home my brand new 24 ft travel trailer with my F-150 from the dealer. I had never pulled it before & was quite nervous and being very cautious. However when I was merging onto the freeway the idiot behind me passed me on the left as I was merging. I didn't feel a thing at the time but I knew it was close. When I got home and looked there was a red paint smudge on the left side of my trailer - it was a red jeep that had passed me.

 

I was leaving St. Paul during rush hour, driving about 20 mph in lane two. I watched the slower lane-one vehicles in my right mirror, and actually saw an elderly woman look at her inside mirror as she merged slowly into my right rear trailer tire. After stopping on the shoulder, we proceeded to a shopping center parking lot and called the police. During the conversation, she explained that she had been trying to exit from the left lane for a certain route to take them home to central Wisconsin. She said that they missed this left-hand exit on their first attempt, had returned to St. Paul, and were trying again. My road atlas showed that the route they needed was not the one in St. Paul, but a Wisconsin highway with the same number about an hour farther east. At this point, the driver's elderly woman passenger pointed out that the driver's husband was a doctor.

Apparently, the doctor had a friend who was a lawyer because my employer received a letter from the lawyer about a month after the minor scratch of paint. The lawyer believed that the accident was the trucking company's fault. Without asking me for any more details, my employer replied to the lawyer that we believed the accident was the woman's fault. We never heard from them again. It pays to put all of the details into your company accident report.

 

It takes time to feel the truck, for newer guys, you will not notice a small bump, or noise, as you get experiance you will learn to pull over and do an inspection of the truck and trailer. When in doubt, pull over and check.
drive 55cat

 

At my last job, we had a guy rear-end one of our buses (45' VanHool coach) with a Focus running about 30MPH (bus was stopped). Neither the driver nor the passengers felt anything.

Car was totalled, bus got a new rear bumper cover after finishing the charter.

 

Yup. I once bumped a small sapling tree over while getting out of a tight area. Had NO IDEA,, as it was with the R (passenger) side of the trailer's bumper. Would be the same if it'd been a car. Rule of thumb: It's gotta transfer ALOT of energy, else it'll feel little different than a speed bump.