My brother is a trucker, and a while ago near where we live,
a trucker he knew was driving down a two-lane rural road at night/late evening and got a call in on the CB about a guy purposefully driving towards oncoming traffic in an area near him, and to keep an eye out for him.
Eventually, he sees a car coming towards him, sure enough, weaving in and out of traffic trying to run into people.
The people are dodging him left and right, and right as he gets in front of the semi,
the trucker saw the guy smiling in his headlights because he knew he was going to finally die.
The trucker was hurt bad (I think he lived through it, but I'm not 100% sure, now that I think about it.
My brother told me this a few years ago), but the guy who ran into him for sure died.
He'd been trying to kill himself that way for a while. Scary stuff.
Was driving north through the mountains of Colorado towards Pueblo, and it was my first time dealing with anything like the Rocky Mountains so I was taking it nice and slow with my hazards on and in the right lane. This was in the spring, and there wasn't much snow on the ground aside from a light dusting.
I remember passing another truck pulled to the shoulder on my way up, nothing out of the ordinary. However, as I was heading down the mountain (which can be scary as shit in an 18-wheeler, trust me) I saw the same truck I passed earlier FLY by me in the left hand lane.
Now being passed on the left going DOWNHILL in the ROCKY MOUNTAINS by another TRACTOR TRAILER is crazy enough, but what really makes this story is this guy's trailer brakes were on fire. He was pulling a load (could tell because the trailer was sealed) and if you know anything about trucks you know there's only so much braking you're supposed to do before they overheat and, worst-case, catch fire.
This guy's truck looked like a f**king comet as he sped down the mountain at what I thought was a surely to be deadly pace.
I grabbed the mic to the radio and called out to him, "Hey Driver! Your brakes are on fire! I mean literally on fire!"
After a few seconds of static, a rough and weathered sounding voice comes back over the speaker of my radio and says, cool as a cucumber, "I know."
And he disappeared around a curve.
I never saw any wrecked truck, emergency crews, or even mention of an accident over the radio.
I did see a discarded fire extinguisher on the ground at the base of the mountain though.
I drove across country twice last year, one southern route, one northern.
I listened to the CB the entire time. It was scary at how bad the average driver is,
and how much helpful information the average driver misses out on because they DON'T have a CB radio.
I was able to get rerouted around several back ups, knew about every cop and speed trap,
and also got great food suggestions.
If you've not driven cross country with a CB radio, then you haven't done it right.
Thanks truckers!
But I was driving back to my college town one day on a big fat patch of five miles of fresh road (two lanes turned four - progress), and I came upon three truckers.
They were weaving back and forth across all four lanes, and to be honest it looked pretty f**kin rad. They were synchronizing their turns perfectly, and it looked like a kickass road dragon or something.
I took the opportunity to do the same (about 300 feet back, mind you), because damn...
I had an opportunity to shred this new road behind the ROAD DRAGON! Anyhow, we were coming up on a hill with no eyes on the other side.
They're in the leftmost lane, and the first two start to drift into the right lanes as they take the hill. I imagine the first radio'd something like "JESUS CHRIST HEAD RIGHT!" in cool trucker lingo.
Caboose broke formation and veered at a dangerous angle to the right.
As his tail gave way to the leftmost lane, I swear to god this jeep slips by, well into the shoulder, with mere inches to spare on the dragon tail.
Jeep owner steadies himself with absolutely 0 grace, and presumably pulls over to clean his s**t undies.
The truckers then serenade him with a series triumphant horn blasts.
Came down a hill with a full load of grain (gross weight around 86,000 lbs.)
and rounded a curve doing somewhere close to 60 mph.
Dead ahead about 100 yds was a narrow bridge and sitting in my lane in the middle of the bridge were several people in lawn chairs with coolers scattered around and fishing lines tossed over the side.
I layed on the air horn and hit the tractor and trailer brakes and stopped about 15 ft. from the lawn chairs.
The people had already s**t their pants and were standing next to the bridge railing.
I asked if they had noticed the "No Fishing Off Bridge" signs posted on both ends of the bridge and one of them answered,
"We seen 'em but we didn't know you was gonna be comin' this way."
I just rolled up the window and pulled away.
A few years back, I was traveling through Ute native land in New Mexico on Highway 491.
491 used to be Route 666, but they changed it a few years back. I think people were stealing the signs.
Anyways, I'm in the middle of the desert around midnight, no lights or civilization for miles,
when up in the sky there's a huge, orange flash.
The orange flash quickly "inflated" into a giant ball, bigger than the sun. It even had a fiery looking texture to it.
Suddenly, the orange ball disappeared, and the entire desert sky, horizon to horizon,
flashed a bright yellow, lighting up the everything around me like it was daytime. Then everything went back to normal.
This all happened within a few seconds, but it was definitely the weirdest thing I've seen on the road.
I was driving for Costco a few years back. It was around this time of year. We usually took extra toy shipments to various locations due to the holiday season. We got a call that one of our locations in rural Kentucky needed to restock their giant Spiderman dolls.
They knew I was a fast driver so I was giving the last minute late night duty. I loaded my truck and headed out on the 265. It was around 3Am when I started to have this eery feeling.
I chalked it up to just being tired and popped a couple of nodoze. About 15 min later the road started to fog up. I mean more so than any other time before or since. It got to the point where I had to pull off to the side and wait.
There wasn't any other cars on the road and I was ahead of time so I figured I could wait until it cleared up a bit. About 5 minutes of sitting still in silence my truck goes dead.
No lights, no engine, nothing. I try to crank it but it was like the battery was dead. I try my CB but cannot get anyone on. I check my cell phone and there is no signal. As I'm sitting there contemplating my next move I hear what sounds like a child crying. It slowly morphed into a woman crying. Or at least that what it sounded like to me.
Now I'm a big man, 6'3, 250 pounds but I refused to exit my cab. I did row down my window and asked if anybody needed help. At that point the crying stopped. Then I heard what sounded like a sinister laugh.
At that point I felt like the laughter was directed at me. I rowed up my window and it seemed like the more scared I became the louder the laugh went.
Then as soon as it started it stopped. And just like that my truck started back up and the fog dissipated. I drove out of there like a bat out of hell. I get to the next truck stop and pull in. I run to the bathroom and pour water on my face and ask myself "did that really just happen?".
I go out to the diner and see this fella in a John Deer hat, red flanner, and blue jeans. I needed to know if anyone else experienced that too. I go up to him and say "Excuse me, are you a fellow trucker cause I just had one hell of an experience." He says "Not a trucker, but...."
My cousin's a long haul driver and he reckons the scariest thing he's ever seen was his own rig on fire.
He was driving at night somewhere in the northwest of Australia when he saw some sparks in his passenger wing mirror.
He stopped to check it out and saw that the rim of one of his rear wheels was glowing red hot because
"the wheel bearing had s**t itself".
Before he could even think, the tyres burst into flames.
He was unable to reach the fire extinguisher because of the flames so he had to call the fire brigade and stand back.
The prime mover and semi trailer full of watermelon were engulfed by flames within a minute or two
and by the time the firies showed up they were completely destroyed.
Corporate just implemented this dolly-less loading system that involved putting product on tiny 4 wheeled trolleys. You stack up your bread, pies etc. onto trays that sit on these trolleys, and roll them into the trailer. Easy as pie. (no pun intended)
Engineers had concluded that, to hold back these stacks from flying out the back, you'd install a strap every 2 rows of stacks (4 stacks in a row).
Well, corporate didn't send us enough of these straps, and we ran out of straps for one load, save two. Told our boss that we can't send a load because we didn't have enough, so he storms up to the dock, tells us lazy dog fuckers to just use the 2 straps at the back... So we did. I mean, it's not like they can't hold back 10,000 lbs of force or anything.
Driver pulled out the load, and got maybe 25 feet before physics took over. I saw the doors fly open and 140 X 4 X 48 loaves of bread slid out the back like a waterfall.
The 2 straps snapped right in half and flung into the wall of the trailer, making a 2' long gash. The trailer itself lunged forward as if this mysterious force propelled it forward.
It took 4 guys 8 hours to clean it all up. No trucks could enter or leave until it was, either. This also happened around midnight--when all the long haul drivers delivered the product to smaller distribution centres across the country for further distribution to stores. It rippled to other distribution centres, causing them to give away overtime to shippers after they basically sat around and watched TV for 8 hours, waiting for their loads.
They even had to call a wrecking crew to pull the trailer aside--the sudden 20,000 lbs of force had damaged the frame so badly the driver refused to pull it. Customers got pissed off because their deliveries were late, arriving in mid day. That all combined with the actual dollar value of the product, it probably costed them hundreds of thousands.
They started taking me seriously after then: I was "demoted" to production (grab ze panz, load ze panz, wipe de zweat), the boss got a nice promotion to a cushy office job
Then there was this other time where a couple crackheads set a load on fire I'm our yard, and nobody noticed there was a 50' tall fire out in the yard for hours.
As I'm smoking a cigarette, a little girl from some direction I couldn't figure out giggles and says "Hi, mister!". My initial reaction was "The f**k is a little kid doing out here at this time?", so I talk back and say hi.
She then responds with "My mommy says you'll be ok, don't worry!".
Now utterly confused, I ask her what she means. No response.
Then suddenly I feel like somebody is standing next to me, but it doesn't feel negative or bad. Just feels like somebody is right there next to me.
Since it didn't have a negative vibe to it, I just finished my cigarette and left.
Later on down the road, I realize that I forgot to fuel up at my last stop when the warning light came on.
So I scramble to look at my GPS and find the nearest truck stop, I find one and set the course.
As I roll up to the truck stop, my truck starts sputtering and I barely make it to the fuel line before the truck starts dying. I ran out of fuel right as I got on the fuel line.
It wasn't until I was fueling up that it occurred to me what the hell happened at my last stop.
Within the first few months of driving IIRC was PA. My first couple years I was a night driver, so it was hard to see things sometimes.
But the one in PA was me trying to follow a flatbedder who was haulin serious ass through the mountains.
At one point I start to fall back because I can feel the van starting to lean.
It wasn't long after that I reach down to take a swig off the handy monster I had, and I look up, and there's a guy standing off to the shoulder just outside the tree line wearing what appeared to be some type of soldier's uniform.
Looked like revolutionary war era, he had a musket as well.
As I approach, I can see him staring right at me, and then he starts walking back into the tree line still looking at me.
Before he manages to make it through the trees, he disappears.
Like literally vanishes in thin air. I had my windows down, and the air in the area got real cold.
After about a mile, the air warmed up again. I had a really sad feeling come over me for a while afterward. Needless to say, I didn't stop for the rest of my shift.
New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah are some states that to this day, I still see shit in the skies that I can't explain.
Lights rapidly changing direction and taking off at blinding speeds, but no sound barrier being broken.
I've seen lights hovering over the desert several miles off the interstate, then it suddenly takes off and the lights cut out.
Various shapes and sizes from what I can make out (again, night driver).
I know military aircraft pretty well, and some of them more than likely were, but some of them absolutely can not be any military air craft currently in mainstream use.
Conventional aircraft do not move like that. The most vivid one would be at an off ramp in New Mexico, I stopped to take a piss. And decided to turn it into a 15 minute break since my ass was sore anyway.
As I'm stargazing and admiring how clear the sky is, I saw what looked like a formation of lights in the shape of a triangle lift off from the desert floor, and then take off into the sky.
I kept me eyes on it, and it just kept gaining altitude until the lights just disappeared. I look down at my watch and notice it's not ticking, so I pull out my phone and it's off.
I turn my phone on, and according to the time on my phone, it had been 5 minutes since my watch stopped. I felt like whatever it was that just took off had something to do with it.
There's an old Chevron station I think it is, seems like FedEx drivers like stopping in there in droves.
I'm guessing it's a popular drop and hook point for them or something. But I stop one day, and I need to take a piss.
I don't know why I didn't stop in Van Horn.
So I pull off, and I roll up to the empty lot across the street. Kent is an abandoned town.
I walk up to the bush line and notice a makeshift firepit. The wood is somewhat burned, but not all the way.
The weird thing is that there's an unscathed dollar bill stuck in the wood. For a second I was like "Ooo piece of candy!" but then this sudden feeling of NOPE came over me. So I left it alone and pissed in the bush.
As I'm walking back, I look over at it and get a real negative feeling. I look to the ground in front of me and bam, there's a rattlesnake looking right at me. I stop dead in my tracks, and walk carefully around it, and it keeps staring at me.
I ran as fast as I could back to my truck feeling like somebody was behind me.
I kicked up a lot of dust getting out of there, and have never stopped in Kent since.
I've had many lot lizards try the good time routine with me, one in particular got up on my truck and started talking to me.
Her breath was pretty bad, not something I wanted to smell as I'm doing my logbook getting ready to shut down.
She tells me she'll give me the best blowjob I've ever had, and for a second, I think about it.
Nope. Then for some reason she reaches down her spandex shorts and scratches herself deep, her hand comes back up onto the door and I can smell the most rancid crotch rot my nostrils have ever been blessed with.
As politely as I could, I declined her services and told her that I really needed to get some sleep.
She smiles and wishes me a good night, then hops on another driver's truck across the way.
10 minutes later, she's in his truck and it's not long before you see the cab rocking.
I ate my granola bar and noped the f**k out to the sleeper and went to bed.
A lady was begging for money, which isn't uncommon at truck stops. She gave me the whole sob story of her boyfriend left her, she didn't have a job, lost the apartment, her two kids were hungry, and she didn't know what to do.
Me being a social creature, I let the conversation go on for some reason.
To make it short, she was molested by her father as a child, raped on several occasions in her teen years,
and then found a lesser of an evil boyfriend who tried to get her into drugs, got her pregnant, and beat her all the time.
I hear that kind of stuff all the time, but just in case she was telling the truth, I gave her what I had in my pockets.
It ended up being $40. She broke down and cried right there, and then I started to wonder that maybe she was telling the truth.
She walked away after some more small talk. I go inside to get dinner, and bigger than s**t, I see her with two kids that look as sad as can be getting dinner. They all looked depressed.
I knew then that she wasn't lying about anything she told me, and I felt a lot of remorse for not doing more.
So I told the waitress to put their meal on my tab. The look on her face when the waitress said their meal was being payed by somebody else was a look I'll never forget.
On Halloween this year I saw a pale lady in a white dress walking around with what looked like a baby in her hands.
I was driving down the interstate when this happened and even stopped but she walked into the woods.
I have no idea if this was a prank, if she needed help or if this was a freaking ghost but it scared the hell out of me.
My friend stopped at a truck stop in South Carolina where they had only one working shower stall and it was occupied.
While waiting he heard this guy grunting furiously and he was taking a very long time to finish,
so my friend being a brash person opens the shower curtain to tell the dude to hurry up.
Inside the guy is standing with his back to the water vigorously f**king a sub sandwich from the shop in the truck stop.
My friend just said "what the f**k" and closed the shower curtain and went and waited in his truck.
When he went back later the guy had left the whole sub in pieces scattered in the shower.
My friend didn't end up showering that day.
Saw a guy with his pants around his ankles as he was passing me.
I thought, that's kinda weird.
Then I saw the whole sight of him stroking his flaccid wiener furiously.
I learned not to look down so much into car's interiors.
My dad was a trucker for years and when he was sleeping at a rest stop one night he woke up to a noise outside of his truck.
He saw the glow of a cigarette and the man smoking it offered to smoke my dads pole and perform other sexual favors.
My dad pulled a gun on him and left.
I drive a truck on a delivery route in a pretty rural part of Kentucky.
just today, I witnessed two black labs fighting in the middle of the road over something.
once I got a little closer, I could tell they were fighting tooth and nail over a severed deer foot.
a few weeks ago I was driving up to a farmers house. dude has a driveway that's about a mile long.
I top the last little hill and I see three owls sitting on his fenceposts.
that was kinda creepy since it was dark and when they turned their heads in my direction, their eyes caught my headlights and lit up pretty bright.
probably the creepiest thing I've ever witnessed was when I drove by a house that was in the midst of being set ablaze by the owners meth addled brother.
it was relatively late, around 10. all I see is a spark and then flames in my side mirrors.
I heard the next day that the brother who's house was being set on fire came out and beat the dog shit out of his brother before putting the fire out.
I own a truck but just to RV around. One night in Oklahoma I stopped to take a poo.
Pulled in, parked, and walked in. Settled into a stall when the door opens and closes quickly.
A quiet Spanish accented man says " do you know who sings this song?" ...
Uhhh no bro. " sorry so sorry" and he's gone.
I heard a woman's voice saying "Help!"
Followed by a man with a thick southern accent repeating "Heelllp".
It went on like that for a while to. This happened about 8 years ago on the toll road in Indiana late at night.
Freaked the s**t it of me.
coming at you Westbound.!. in your hammer lane. (wrong way driver on the interstate,
has happened twice in 22 years)
Mans voice..."I got my nightgown on, my little red panties on and I'm ready to go to bed".
I have heard this all over the states and Canada over the cb
"HOLY S**T, THAT TRUCKS ON FIRE"
We weren't entirely concerned, until we realized it was us.