Scariest Moment

EVERYBODY should know better than to do that. But then I can't even get my eyes open before the first cup, so if my wife held a mirror in front of me, I'd never see myself in it!

 

I have a few.
1st year driving. Straight truck, delivering milk. A lady blows the red light as I'm cruising along about 40 mph. Traffic on both sides, all I could do is lock em up and hold on. At the last second before I hit her, I see a babies car seat in the back seat right in front of me. I hit her and she does about 4 spins before hitting the curb and stopping. I jump out and run over to find the car seat empty and the lady was fine. I hit right behind the drivers seat. thank god she didn't have her baby with her that morning!!

I was doing a dedicated from just north of detroit to toledo 3 times a day. Started at 12:45 a.m.. 2 little kids at home and a small house. I didn't get much sleep. After doing that run for about 8 months, I started getting pretty sleepy on the 1st trip. I wouldn't remember anything past downtown detroit until I saw the big jeep sign in toledo for my exit. That's when I said enough is enough and found a different job.

a couple years back we had a bad snow storm. Plows didn't touch the freeway yet and there was about a foot and a half of snow on it. My windshield froze up and all I could see was a narrow arch where the ice on the wiper was taking off the snow. I couldn't pull over or else I would get stuck. So I stuck my head out the window and drove about 50 miles like that. Hind sight, I should have pulled over and waited it out.

Just this past friday I was headed down I96 coming into the suburbs of detroit. I was a car pulled over on the right. I was in the middle lane doing about 65. All of a sudden she hammers it and heads right toward me. I swerved a little but there were cars on my left. I laid on the horn and locked em up. she heard that air horn and swerved back to the shoulder as fast as she sweved at me. Must have had a couple too many at happy hour.

Those are just a couple. I could go on and on. I think I've seen something similar to most of the stories on here except the mountain ones. I haven't done a lot of mountain driving. Hats off to you white knuckle drivers going through the rockies and sierra nevadas. As far as driving tired goes. I used to plow snow. Longest I ever worked straight was 34 hours. I would see all kinds of crazy stuff that wasn't there. Kids running across the road at 3 a.m.. One time I got so tired, I fell asleep pushing snow into a snow bank. Woke up about 3 hours later, truck in drive and the radio cranked. And the D.O.T. is on us about driving too long. They should look at snow plow trucks!

 

I know what you are asking but can't help it.. I've never driven 160,000 lbs down the road which is what 80 tons is but we can't expect a beach mat to know of such things. hehehe, semper fi.

 

Driving the new loop around Sudbury, Ontario one morning at dawn I saw a bunch of trucks pulled onto the shoulder. I figured that they were just getting some shut-eye so kept cruising. Coming down a hill towards a stop light I put on my brakes to slow down and found out why they were pulled over. Complete black ice with no warning at all. I took my foot off the fuel and let the truck cruise straight and luckily the light turned green. I gently eased to a stop. Got out and fell on my butt in the road. Nasty stuff.

 

Coming across the trans-can cars were pulled up behind a snowplow going 30mph. Road wasn't bad so I got in the right lane and passed doing about 40. right when I got even with the plow the wind came up and it was like being inside of a pillow. Complete white-out.

Driving up a highway in Quebec, why do these stories all seem to involve Canada?, I saw a car on the right shoulder. I got in the left lane like always and just as I got near it the car slowly pulled out into the right lane. Just as my trailer got even with the car it made a hard left and I put my trailer tires right over the hood about 1ft from the windshield tearing a good chunk of the front of the car off. Both the guy and the girl were ok. 1 more foot would have killed them both. I asked him what was up and he said his steering wheel locked up as he turned the key off. I thought it sounded kinda lame and then the girl got out. About 4ft of legs and blonde hair. Model for sure. I waited until she got back into the car and asked him again what the real story was between him and me and he turned his back to the car and said his girlfriend was, uh, doing something to him and at the climatic moment he lost control of the car and the rest was history. I laughed for 2 days. Hope it was worth a car to him.

2 yrs ago I had a job driving for SNI on a WalMart dedicated which was mostly nights. I hated every minute of it but gave it a go. One night about 0300 I was on the way back to the yard and fell asleep on a bridge with a curve in it. I came awake just before hitting the guardrail and going over the side and was able to jack the truck back into the lane. When I got back to the terminal I dropped the trailer, fueled up the truck and handed the keys and my comcard to the dispatcher and never looked back as I walked out.

 

First tanker run down a hill with a sorta sharp turn at bottom I took a little too quick actually had me say "Momma!"...The cold chill I got kept me awake the rest of the night...

 

It is entirely possible that pages back in this thread I might have said this.
I was pretty new at PAM and I was on a HILLY 4 lane highway of some sort. I topped a hill not real heavy and just as it got up to good speed again this station wagon was doing maybe 40 in the right lane. I got it slowed down with the nose of my tractor about 2/3 of the way up alongside of that car on the right shoulder. As far as I could tell the old folks in that car never even knew how close it was!

I want to say it was a US hwy in Ohio but I can't say for certain.

 

First winter on the Road, 78,000lbs and 2.5hr long 2 LANE route, threw hills, curves after a Snow Storm before the road was plowed in MONTANA! lol sheety MT road + ICE + 6" snow + Curves + Hills + Narrow 2 lane + 78,000lbs + Nearly worn out super singles = a lil scary speed limit was 55mph lol couldnt do over 35 without spinning out lol





American Trucker

 

I believe it. I was riding in my fathers custom van one day when his captains chair fell over backwards on him while he was driving. I was too surprised to be scared.

 

Had been driving for almost a year, when i received a return load from a plant on the north shore of The St Lawrence in eastern Quebec. 49000 lbs of wire coil, give or take a few. Had no problems climbing a long grade loaded going east, thus i never thought much on same grade westbound (with heavier load) till i noticed halfway down that i had the brake to the floor and was barely maintaining my speed; I had picked the wrong gear, started too fast downhill, in a truck with a 315 Cummins and no jakes. Luckily, traffic was nonexistent until near the bottom; i turned a curve to find a flatbed a ways ahead of me with trailer full of concrete barrier sections, descending at a proper speed, with his jake on. By the time we arrived at the bottom of the grade and started into the limits of a town I had closed to within two truck lengths and my overcooked brakes were useless; having the engine fan on probably saved my butt. Made it through town without killing anyone, stopped at a pulloff and sat with stinking brakes for a half hour. Since this episode of stupidity, i've been much more attentive to highway grades.