Scariest Moment

Mid 1970s, I was an O/O pulling a vacuum trailer which, at that time was very much in demand here in so Louisiana oilfields. Being a rather greedy young fellow, I was usually running tired, and yes, napping while rolling.
Got home one night, had a call while I was in the bathtub, very good customer wanted me to load with drilling mud asap, and go to a rig that had taken a gas kick. This usually meant lots of standby time - being paid to sleep!
Unfortunately, or rather FORTUNATELY, 15 mi from my home, in a rural area, driving at night in a slow drizzling rain, I fell asleep at the wheel en route to the facility where I was to load. Waking up as I ran off the road I looked up in time to see me hit an elderly man walking on the gravel shoulder. He was walking toward me, wearing dark blue jeans and a blue plaid flannel shirt. I stopped the truck in the road, grabbed a flashlight, and began running back crying, thinking to myself, I had just killed a man. From a ways, I could see the old fellow laying in the road ditch, not moving. As I got closer, I stopped, wiped the rain from my eyes, and when I looked again, the old man had changed to a large mailbox mounted on a piece of pipe, which was in turn welded to a truck wheel for the base.
More than 30 years ago, I can barely recall the mailbox, but I can still remember what the "man" was wearing, and especially the look on his face just before I hit him.

While I am not a religious person, I guarantee you that the Lord sent me a message that night!
You'll would not believe how much that slowed me down.

 

All you old school drivers have seen the black dog at night, once you'd been running over 15 hours or something.
This may sound silly, but I could have sworn I saw Santa Claus hitchhiking on the shoulder one night, who disappeared when I got up there! What makes it really bad is that I was kind of new to the OTR, and I'd just been thru a couple of towns, hit stoplights and everything, and had found myself wondering when I was going to get to them. You'd think I'd have pulled over then, but it took a fat guy in a candy suit to make me realize I'd gone too far.

 

The Visions I call them. Sleep deprivation, if you don't sleep enough to dream your mind will dream when your awake. I followed a guy running down the middle of I-29 in a green trench coat for five miles and could only think, "I wonder if he is in the Army?" On another occasion I saw a billy goat jump behind a reflector post and disappear. It was a big billy goat to be able to hide like that. In Washington state I sat behind a guy waiting at some railroad tracks for the train he thought was there to pass. There wasn't a train for miles around, but he saw one there even as I talked to him.

Nothing scary at the time but, in retrospect the idea of driving a loaded big truck while hallucinating is a little creepy.

 

I know exactly what you mean. When you start hearing voices in the truck then you know it is really time to pull over for some sleep.

 

You got to watch out on route 29 between Kelseyville Ca and 20 west of I-5 in Williams. Bicycles are permited even though there are often no shoulders, blind curves and lots of truck travel. One day I was coming down a hill on 29 between Kelseville and Lower Lake with double flatbeds loaded with about 60k of pears (which was standard practice) when suddenly around a blind corner at the bottom of said hill was two hippies on one of them 2 person bikes weaving around in my lane. There was no way I was going to be able to stop and the only thing that saved them was a small break in oncoming traffic that I swerved into. You ain't seen brakes smoke so bad. I couldn't believe people would be stupid enough to ride a bike in a highway with constant truck traffic and no shoulder. Must be all the pot they smoke out there.

 

There ya go, pickin' on the poor hippies!

 

Freezing Rain on I90. Cant see, Cant clear the windshield, Cant stop or you maybe stuck and the worst of the strom is chasing you.