Stories from the road - Democratic Underground

Droopy

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Sat Jun-25-05 06:14 PM
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Stories from the road

I'm going to preface this story with a public service announcement. When you all are out there on the road don't hang around them big trucks too long if you can help it. The longer you ride along side a truck the greater your chances are of becoming fubar. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in a hurry out on the road. A trucker could inadvertently come out of his/her lane. You could be riding in a blind spot and have a trucker move over on you because he/she cannot see you. A tire from the truck could explode and cause serious damage to your car and possibly you. I saw a truck one time that had $5000 worth of body damage to it due to an exploding tire from another truck when the driver was passing it. Imagine what that would do to a car or heaven forbid a motorcyclist. And now for the story.

I was working for a small trucking company at the time this story is set in. They gave me a brand new Volvo to drive. It had a 10-speed transmission and a 475 horsepower motor. They left the spec sheet in the truck and it said that the truck's top speed was 99 mph. I thought I had a real hot rod on my hands as I was used to trucks with 330 horsepower motors that were governed at 62 mph. But I didn't take the truck over 75 mph as that was the speed limit in some of the central and western states. I learned quick, though, that they expected a lot in return for that new truck. They ran the hell out of me. As a trucker it is illegal to drive after you have worked 70 hours in an 8 day period. I was constantly up against that limitation. I would often start driving right at midnight as that was the time when I would get some hours back.

I was out in southern California one time when I was dispatched on a load going to North Carolina. I loved those kind of trips because I hated to sit at loading docks. I liked to get a load and drive for 4 or 5 days without any worries of getting hung up somewhere. I picked up the load then settled in for a break because I was out of hours. At midnight I got back on the road again.

The night started out uneventful. After a little while driving I tuned the radio to an AM station and listened to Art Bell talk about Bigfoot or aliens or psychics or some such stuff. I loved Bell's show and he helped me get through a lot of long nights.

After a while of driving I was on I-40 in northern Arizona. There was hardly anybody out there and that's the way I liked it. Nothing but smooth sailing. It must have been about 4 am when I noticed a car coming up on me. I was cruising at 75 mph. When the car got up to me the driver moved over to the left lane to pass me. He was probably only doing a mile or two an hour faster than me and that kind of annoyed me. I hate it when people just sit there beside me and won't gas on it a little to get by quickly. The car moved up slowly until they were right under my door. I noticed that the car was swerving a little. I looked down into the car to see a woman asleep with the seat back in the passenger seat and to see a man kind of slouched over the wheel. I know what that posture that the driver was sitting in usually means. He was tired.

Then the driver let off the gas a little and started to fall back to the rear of my truck. But as soon as he would get back to to the rear of my truck he would start coming forward again gently swerving side to side in his lane. After about 3 or 4 times of doing that he finally put his foot into it a little and got by me. There was another truck probably about an 1/8 of a mile in front of me. I noticed that the driver of the car actually came out of his lane a couple of times between the time that he passed me and got up to the other truck. I didn't have a cb at the time so I couldn't warn the other trucker about the car. I also did not have a cell phone or I may have called the driver of the car in to the state patrol. It turned out that somebody else would call the cops, but not before it was too late.

As the driver of the car got up to the other truck he swerved way out of his lane and onto the shoulder of the road and then off the road entirely with the left side of the vehicle. There was gravel off the left shoulder and it will suck you into it if you are going 80 mph. The driver of the car then yanked to car back on the road, but it was too late. I thought that I saw the car hit the tandems of the trailer of the truck in front of me and bounce off them, but later I wouldn't be able to say for sure. Whatever happened the car over-steered to get back to the left and got sideways and that was the end for that car. It must have barrel rolled 8 times into the median.

I stopped the truck by the wreck. I didn't know what I was going to do, but stopping just seemed like the right thing to do. I ran over to the car to see the driver climbing out of what used to be the back window. He said something like, "Oh my God! Help me get her out!" He then went back into the car and started dragging out the passenger. I helped him when he got her back to the window. She was unconscious and she had a big lump on her head. I was amazed. I expected to find two dead people, but this guy was up and walking around like there was nothing wrong with him.

A few other people began to stop. One person had a cell phone and called for help. Another person had a blanket to cover the lady in. After a little bit the injured lady regained consciousness and started moving around. It looked like she probably had a concussion, but it didn't appear that she had broken any bones. It turned out that the car was a rental and the driver was not insured to drive it. She had rented the car in her name. She told the driver to tell the cops that she had been driving.

After a little while the cops and an ambulance showed up. One cop was asking the couple that had wrecked some questions. Another cop was talking to me as I was the only one who witnessed the accident besides the other trucker that did not stop. I told the cop what I saw and that I thought that they had hit the other truck.

The cop said, "Are you sure they hit the truck? If they did it means that I have to do something to find it."

I said, "Well it was kind of off in the distance when I saw it. Come to think of it I guess I can't really say for sure whether they hit the truck or not."

That was good enough for the cop to shut his note pad.

It was probably about a year later when the lady from the wreck tried to contact me. I guess she was being sued by the rental company and she wanted to talk about the accident with me. She must have got my number from the police. I wasn't there when she called and I didn't want to call her back. There is probably nothing that I could say to help. Especially if I told her that I knew she wasn't driving when the accident occurred.