Driving Horror Stories

[House]

Was anybody here ever an OTR driver? Bet you'd have some stories to tell.

Yep, still am.

To date, my scariest story happened on the way to CDL school. I was passing a semi, and he just started easing over into my lane when I had nowhere to go, and me blowing my horn didn't seem to get his attention.

I had to slam on the brakes to avoid becoming road kill, and he never seemed to notice he almost flattened my pick-up.

Aside from almost dying, how do you like your job? Or is it horrible because of all the regs?

The regs are a little over the top, and it's easy to see that many of them were written by people that don't know the difference between a steering wheel and a fifth wheel.

It's getting to where the only way you can make any money in transport is to own your own fleet and lease trucks out. The expense of upkeep and fuel is getting to be too high to turn a profit on, and company driver pay hasn't gone up in... well, since I've started driving.

 

[BDBoop]

Yep, still am.

To date, my scariest story happened on the way to CDL school. I was passing a semi, and he just started easing over into my lane when I had nowhere to go, and me blowing my horn didn't seem to get his attention.

I had to slam on the brakes to avoid becoming road kill, and he never seemed to notice he almost flattened my pick-up.

Aside from almost dying, how do you like your job? Or is it horrible because of all the regs?

The regs are a little over the top, and it's easy to see that many of them were written by people that don't know the difference between a steering wheel and a fifth wheel.

It's getting to where the only way you can make any money in transport is to own your own fleet and lease trucks out. The expense of upkeep and fuel is getting to be too high to turn a profit on, and company driver pay hasn't gone up in... well, since I've started driving.

Are you local, or interstate?

 

[House]

Aside from almost dying, how do you like your job? Or is it horrible because of all the regs?

The regs are a little over the top, and it's easy to see that many of them were written by people that don't know the difference between a steering wheel and a fifth wheel.

It's getting to where the only way you can make any money in transport is to own your own fleet and lease trucks out. The expense of upkeep and fuel is getting to be too high to turn a profit on, and company driver pay hasn't gone up in... well, since I've started driving.

Are you local, or interstate?

Interstate

 

[BDBoop]

The regs are a little over the top, and it's easy to see that many of them were written by people that don't know the difference between a steering wheel and a fifth wheel.

It's getting to where the only way you can make any money in transport is to own your own fleet and lease trucks out. The expense of upkeep and fuel is getting to be too high to turn a profit on, and company driver pay hasn't gone up in... well, since I've started driving.

Are you local, or interstate?

Interstate

Sometimes that sounds cool, but the inclement weather aspect would be very scary. And I wouldn't be able to just hole up and wait it out.

 

[House]

Are you local, or interstate?

Interstate

Sometimes that sounds cool, but the inclement weather aspect would be very scary. And I wouldn't be able to just hole up and wait it out.

That's what chains are for.

 

[westwall]

Driving down a road like this in Africa with bandits following behind after scaring them away. No cover, just wondering if they would start shooting again...

 

[BDBoop]

Driving down a road like this in Africa with bandits following behind after scaring them away. No cover, just wondering if they would start shooting again...

Were you a civilian at the time?

 

[Spoonman]

I was driving home from the movies on night about 12:30 at night. I was doing about 55. I was going around a curve to the left and a car was coming at me in the other direction. turns out he was drunk and ended up crossing into my lane. he was doing about the same speed as me. so we hit head on. I ended up getting thrown through the windshield. in the process, my legs broke the steering wheel on the way out and I ended up with a piece of it embedded in me. I remember hitting the glass and not much else. I sort of remember hitting the ground and rolling, but barely. other then some serious bruises an few cracked ribs and a broken thumb I was ok. logic says that incident would have convinced me to start wearing a seatbelt. except for one thing. the force of the impact pretty much crushed the engine compartment back to the windshield. the steering column was pushed back and went through the drivers seat. had I been wearing a seatbelt and not thrown, it would have gone through my chest.

Okay, I'll stop yelping "OMG! OMG!" just any minute now.

How old were you when that happened?

24 or 25. We had just come from a drive in movie and i had just dropped my girlfriend off at her house and was heading home.

 

[Mr. H.]

This past weekend was the trip from hell. Daughter had an audition in Chicago on Sunday. We drove 8 hours to her school, got to the hotel, maybe 5 hours of sleep that night. Hit the road at dark-30 the next morning and drove through a freakin' blizzard for an hour. THAT SAME NIGHT- drove another 7 hours back to her school. Next day - 8 hours back home. I never prayed so hard.

Got an even better story...

[MENTION=20545]Mr. H.[/MENTION] it is a good thing I didn't hold my breath.

We are making the same trip this Sunday, only breaking it up and taking our time.

Back in the ought-80's, I was making a fairly short drive to visit a friend after a huge snowfall. It was very windy so there were white-outs along the way. I remember driving along a stretch where the snow had been plowed six feet high on either side of the road. I was going maybe 35 mph and couldn't see a damn thing.

A car passed, going the opposite direction, and I immediately thought "wow- good thing we didn't smack head-on". Then it dawned on me- he had passed me on the RIGHT. So.... we were each in the wrong lane! I let out the biggest hoot & holler. Jayzus!

 

[R.D.]

I was driving home and it was incredably bright out so I need to open and extend both visors.

Then I went to look into the rear view mirror I couldn't see a thing, I could see ahead and in the side mirrors but not in the rear.....I thought I was having a stroke or losing my mind.

Then I remember the visors were covering the mirror. Simpletons should stay home

 

[Spoonman]

ok, on the lighter side. I grew up in northen NJ. Our bars closed at like 1 AM. but if you drove across the border to NY State they were open to 3, a few even 4. so after we closed our bars we always headed to NY to finish the night off. needless to say, we drove drunk. coming home, we had to cross the major highway in the area. this was a 4 lane highway and we crossed at an intersection with a traffic light. so at about 3:30 one night i'm coming up to the intersection and i have a green light. so I hit the gas to make sure I make the light. the light turns yellow so i hit the gas a little more. I go through the intersection at about 95 -100 mph. i get to the others side and i'm about to start slowing down when i see something crossing the road. it was a racoon. So i hit the breaks and skid about 100 feet or so to a stop. I sit there for a few seconds and everybody it going, hey I think you missed it. so feeling all proud of myself i start to pull away real slowly and all of a sudded i hear and feel a crunch. I guess it was paniced and sitting under the car. I drove past the next day and there sitting at the end of a 100 + foot skid mark was a flat raccoon. anyway, a few days later a " Caution, I break for Animals" bumper Sticker shows up on my car

 

[Pogo]

In the months after Katrina I was renting cars to do my work, having already viewed my own vehicle from a satellite photo sitting submerged in seven feet of water (I had evacuated in another car). This got to be expensive enough to make my first eBay purchase a new (used) car, a Saturn station wagon. Took that car to my GF's house, said 'well here's my new car'. Without a word she went into the house, rooted around and came out with a bright red ribbon which she tied around the post of the rear-view mirror.

"So - what's that?" I asked.

"Maloccio" she says. "Protection from the evil eye".
She's Sicilian and her family has some amazing occult experiences, so I took this very seriously and with gratitude.

Couple of years later I'm in Carolina, coming over a lonely two-lane hilly highway. It's about 8 at night and dark. As I crest the hill off in the distance on the left is an old general store with gas pumps outside, and on the right, a couple of small rural-residential streets on the right. Nothing else. Nobody on the road. The store is closed for the night.

Down yonder an old pickup truck pulls out from one of the roads on the right; he's far enough ahead that I don't have to slow down from my 55, he's got time to accelerate. But as I get closer, now he's slowing up, has no turn signal on but he appears to be preparing to turn right again. Whether he's turning or not I figure I'll just pass around him. As I go out to the left lane to do that, I'm almost even with him when suddenly his left fender veers right in front of me. He's turning left.

I'm going 55 and I'm looking at an F150 fender. Where the fuck is he turning??

No time to ponder, no time to honk. I snap my wheel to the left, off the road completely and into the parking lot of the general store, right through the gas pump lane and around back to the right to get on the road again. I'm pretty sure I'm the only guy who ever went through that store's gas pump lane at 55 miles an hour. I can't believe I was able to do that without so much as a bump. I'm equally sure that maloccio ribbon had something to do with making it happen without a hitch. I have no idea what went through that old man's mind when he saw me go around him, although from the way he was driving there wasn't a lot going on in his mind anyway.

That car and that ribbon went through a few other adventures in the over 200,000 miles I put on it through 28 states and Canada (added to the over 200,000 it already had when I bought it). And the ribbon stayed with me the entire run, only being gingerly and solemnly removed when I finally sold the car.

The maloccio ribbon, now faded pink from eight years of sunlight, is still with me on the present car. The general store is gone now, moved when they widened that road to a four-land divided highway, which would have made that move impossible. But every time I drive by that spot I remember exactly where it was and how I put a new meaning to the term "express lane". And I look up at my ribbon, and I look up to the sky. And I wink and whisper, "Grazie".

 

[PixieStix]

I was visiting my family in West Virginia. On my way to Beckley, I had 2 different routes I could go. One route took 2 and 1/2 hours the other took 1 and 1/2 hours.

I decided to take the shortest route. I didn't have a problem with it, since my Dad gave me driving lessons on that mountain. Plus I was very accustomed to driving on mountains and kiss your butt winding roads (with and without guard rails.)

One of the worst things about this trip, is that I had 2 of my small nieces, my son and my sister with me. I had their lives in my hand.

Once you are on this mountain, there is no turning back. You are do or die. This particular night I was terrified! Once I got about 20 minutes into the trip and I was suddenly in a cloud, not fog, but a cloud. I could not stop, for fear of another vehicle coming toward me from behind. I had to journey on. Just thinking about it still terrifies me. I slowed to about 2 miles per hour at times on these winding, dark, no guard rail roads, very high up.

My sister was holding the door open looking for the white line as I was heeding her direction every inch of the way.

Needless to say. We made it safe and sound. It took 6 hours to drive across and upon the top and down the other side of that mountain. Also I will never ever drive that mountain again. EVER. It was terrifying

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

When I first got my license I was driving this big tank of a car and crashed into a police car flying across the road in front of me. He was in a neighborhood and shouldn't have been going that fast in the first place. He landed in the front yard of this womans house and he had to get out the passenger side. ( his door was totally crunched in ) He wasn't hurt but he was shook up. I told him he needed to slow down and be more careful - he came out of no where. Since then I have never had another accident. I have the safe drivers award. - Jeri

 

[Sallow]

Was anybody here ever an OTR driver? Bet you'd have some stories to tell.

Yep, still am.

To date, my scariest story happened on the way to CDL school. I was passing a semi, and he just started easing over into my lane when I had nowhere to go, and me blowing my horn didn't seem to get his attention.

I had to slam on the brakes to avoid becoming road kill, and he never seemed to notice he almost flattened my pick-up.

That happened to me quite a few times when I drove a truck.

Usually it was Tandem trucks that did that.

 

[Sallow]

Car, bike, cycle - we don't care. What's your most memorable experience involving a vehicle (yours or what you saw while you were out there).

I'll bring mine to the table shortly.

[MENTION=24208]Spoonman[/MENTION]

5 Hours to get home from work today.

Normally takes 45 minutes.

It was ridiculous.

Seriously that long, or seemed that long. Because even with inclement weather, that's ridiculous.

I am SO glad I am a telecommuter.

No..it was that long.

I left the office at 4..got home at 9.

It was insane outside. To many stories to tell.

My fave though was NY Buses getting stuck on the top level of the 59th bridge because they couldn't make the incline.

Gotta love it.

 

[Spoonman]

5 Hours to get home from work today.

Normally takes 45 minutes.

It was ridiculous.

Seriously that long, or seemed that long. Because even with inclement weather, that's ridiculous.

I am SO glad I am a telecommuter.

No..it was that long.

I left the office at 4..got home at 9.

It was insane outside. To many stories to tell.

My fave though was NY Buses getting stuck on the top level of the 59th bridge because they couldn't make the incline.

Gotta love it.

it took me 4 hrs last night. I was watching a movie and when it was over i looked out to see where were were. we were still on 95 and hadn't evem made it to rt 80 yet. and hr and a half to do what normally takes 10 minues.

 

[westwall]

Driving down a road like this in Africa with bandits following behind after scaring them away. No cover, just wondering if they would start shooting again...

Were you a civilian at the time?

I've always been a civilian! Just a well armed one! I was in Morocco advising on the cleanup of a mine site. We had minders with us, but I had an AK, as did my colleague and fortunately he was a good shot too! We made sure to not hit any of the bandits, but we also made it very plain to them that we could, any time we really wanted to.

 

[Zoom-boing]

Not me, the hubs. He was going to work one morning, very early, still dark out. He's driving along the highway when he comes upon a severed leg in the middle of the road. Slows way down, goes a bit more, and comes upon a car pulled over. He stopped, along with some other cars. Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to walk a highway road in the dark. Guy had gotten hit by the car that was pulled over, severed his leg, killed him. Took the hubs a lonnnng time to get over what he saw.

 

[Mr. H.]

Mt. Evans, Colorado. 'Nuff said. Never again.

Half way up I was white-knuckled, drenched in sweat, and sure we were gonna die. Wife was leaning on me with her eyes closed, and daughter was on the floor in the back seat crying. Oofah.