Log Jam

This. I've had to pop brakes a couple times myself... people don't usually like it, but I guarantee they'd be even more upset if they got stuck behind me longer because I made the situation worse

 

I have been delivering "direct to site" loads for all of my 45 year career. .
Things like TV broadcast vans to a high dollar country club, Portable stages to city parks, kitchen cabinets to residential streets, office furniture to buildings in lower Manhattan in NYC. Places that a tractor trailer have absolutely no business being in, indeed are out and out prohibited. See that cab over? Now you know why I have it.
I learned long ago the best laid plans, and information, often go astray. I start by asking for directions with this sentence: "Sir I am delivering XXXX to you, and I have the biggest tractor trailer on the face of the planet, I need information I can bet on, if you don't feel comfortable giving it, I will get it through other channels." This was long before cell phones, GPS and satellite imagery on your "device"
I cannot tell you the number of times I have blocked up traffic, horns blaring, fingers waving, telling consignees why I will not XXXX to avoid this:

I learned my lesson in 1978, 2 years into my career. I was backing into a driveway in Hanover NJ for a delivery because the business had too much crap around. Should have been able to pull in and back to the dock. Major 4 lane street, light traffic, I am 1/2 way into the maneuver when I hear BANG and my foot slips off the clutch. Back the rest of the way in, then I notice a brand new 1978 Cadillac Eldorado in the middle of the street with the entire drivers side caved in. He hit my exposed tandems, did absolutely no damage to my vehicle, totaled his, he went to the hospital in an ambulance with serious injuries. Cop gives me a ticket for backing on a highway, he got a ticket for failure to maintain control.

Never again did I make any maneuver that might get someone hurt. Time I have, but I am not a cat, 9 lives I don't.