Truck Drivers Shared 35 Of Their Most Memorable Incidents While On The Road

A friend's brother was a trucker, he had a car drive up next to him and throw a pillow case in front of his truck, thinking there might be something in it that would pop his tires(apparently this happens somewhat regularly), he avoids it and pulls over to remove it from the road so it doesn't cause any accidents. Turns out it was full of kittens. All of them survived and he actually kept a kitten and it became his travel buddy for the remainder of his trucking career.

Driving up to college for the first time, my mom got tired and wanted to pull over for a nap at a truck stop. While she slept, I people watched. A huge truck pulled up (one of those tricked out, well lit and super shiny trailers), and a big, tattooed driver climbed out. Then he leaned back in to pull something out.

It was a kitten! A *tiny* little white kitten. He played with that kitten on the truck stop benches for so long, happy as could be, giggling and smiling like I would have. It was the cutest juxtaposition I've ever seen.

I used to work with an ex-trucker who once had a woman commit s*****e by jumping in front of his truck. He hasn't driven since, and now spends him time working with troubled/s******l people. He was never quite the same after that happened.

Edit: she had left a s*****e note in her house, she had a history of depression. The family didn't want to sue or anything, they said they felt terrible for him that she chose to go that way and didn't want to put him through anymore. They actually said they were glad she was no longer in pain.

I'm not a great story teller, but the things I've seen...I'll try to share the most exciting, surprising, and meaningful experiences.


Preface: Trucking....it's routine. The same task, the same chair, the same wheel, the same job. But if you pay attention, it can be an adventure every day.


Most exciting: let's see...


-Lots of fire. I've probably personally saved people loads in damages just from calling 911. The craziest was this one time I was almost home. The sun was just barely down and I saw a truck headed the other way with something bright. There was a constant line of sparks, 4 feet high, flying from his back right tire (his right). I'd never seen so many sparks, as if he was doing it on purpose. As he passed me I could see that the sparks were now a solid wall of fire, several hundred feet long and about three feet high. I called 911 that second and told them to hurry because that fire had a head start. Figured I might have saved the firefighters a few seconds before the next call would have been in and hoped it had made the difference. Saw it three days later - they got there in time before it reached away from the highway.


-I've driven into storms that convince me I'm about to die... I mean like walls of storm, it took less than a minute to go from clear to "I can't see...I really can't see and I'm going 70 with a full load, in all likelihood I am about to either smash into a stopped car or manage to stop in time and get wrecked from behind."


-I've had to literally dodge other cars. Sometimes people make mistakes, or get enraged, or maybe take d***s, but I've had cars both unintentionally and intentionally try to hit me on the highway. You want an adrenaline rush, experience that. When you're trucking you're controlling something so powerful that you hold the lives of everyone around you. Can you imagine a 26 thousand pound truck hitting a 3 thousand pound car? I'm sure I've saved people's lives by keeping track of the big picture and dodging other cars in HEAVY traffic. Still scars me thinking about those times when I've been a fraction of a second from a national-news worthy wreck.


Most surprising:


-One homeless man chasing another in a dead sprint


-Once found a rolled car ON the highway at 3AM. A few people were there standing around it, and I asked them what was going on and offered my help. They said they had no clue, they had just seen the car blocking one lane and pulled over. The worst part was that we didn't see anyone associated with the car. We wanted to believe that they had fled the scene, but we were afraid that they might have been flung a couple hundred feet away somewhere out in the tall grass where we couldn't see. Never found out about that one.


-I occasionally pick up hitchhikers. Very interesting people. You want to have an interesting day? Find a hitchhiker. I usually do it when it's cold out (I can't stand the cold) and I've got enough room to pull over safely within a quarter mile of the guy. Most of them are very poor, but for different reasons. Some are on an adventure, like Jade. He said he was just traveling to experience life, man. We talked for two hours straight about life and about who we were and what we wanted. He said he was going to Mexico for some hippie commune where everyone's n**e and you just do d***s and love on each other. Some are on a mission, like my most recent rider. I can't remember his name, but he was headed to Houston Texas to pick up a disability check. He seemed pretty smart and hard-working. He was trying to help me with stuff our whole trip. But some of these guys, as you've heard, are crazy. I met one guy who seemed to have a half-dozen mental disorders (I have a B.S. degree in psychology) and I started to fear for my life. This guy told me I wouldn't believe him, but he was the leader of a secret Arian group that has 20 leaders that all E.S.P. to each other(like telepathy). He would try to explain by telling me to look at the next sign on the road, and then say, "mmm....mmm....yeah, you see? No? The next one, the next one you'll see!" I thought he really might try to k**l me, and I admit I was afraid...I can't try to fight somebody while I'm driving a truck on the highway.

Most meaningful and memorable:


-Sometimes it's the small stuff that you remember the most, like when a beautiful song comes on while you're driving into the most beautiful sunset you've seen in weeks. Or when you see a board on the road and you line up your tire to run over the edge of it and successfully flick it 15ft off the road. One of my favorite memories is just trying to watch Monsters Inc. on the 10in. monitor in the suburban next to me for a few minutes. But I do have a few more notable memories.


-I've driven in hilly country a couple times where I get to see beautiful fog. It builds up in the valleys and it's like a dream. The fog, much more than the storms can be actual walls. It's so cool to go from clear day to 50ft vision in about 1 second, and then instantly back to clear a few seconds later.


-I've had a guy on a motorcycle next to me practicing his wheelie for 2 minutes! Talk about nerve-racking. Really cool to watch though.


-Perhaps the most memorable experience I had was joining a caravan that was speeding for like an hour. If you've never done this, you always join up at the back and watch for the trade time. Usually around 10-15 miles. Then the front guy will drop back and the next person will lead for that same amount of time. Everyone takes an even time of leading, and everyone is less likely to get pulled over.


-I'm sure there's more, but I've said too much. There's really just too much to tell. If you've read this whole thing then you might consider trying for your CDL. There are loads of drivings jobs, even right now. It really just takes responsibility and concentration. Thanks for reading.

Years ago, I drove across Louisiana and the entire state’s highway system except 50 miles was under construction. No exaggeration. They were repaving the whole state. 

There was an apology sign when you crossed the state line.

I was making the trip with a friend pulling a 28’ boat on a trailer in a diesel dually pickup truck (so very wide, very big and very loud). 

The highway was down to a single lane, cat-in-the-hat construction barrels on the lines on either side, in a downpour, *at night* with several inches of standing water and zero shoulder (literally dropped off several inches on one side and concrete barrier on the other) with no break down lane and no open exits for *miles*. 

I couldn’t see anything beyond my headlights and only the barrels marked the road. There was wind but thank god we were too heavy to blow us off the road.

It was so f****d. We couldn’t even switch off drivers. I was in tears and screaming about all the exits closed, hunched over the steering wheel trying to see in the darkness ahead.

I had several miles of vehicles behind me, just an endless string of headlights. It was the fear of going too fast and fishtailing or hitting the barriers but also concerned I was holding up dozens of cars. There were places where I felt the trailer hydroplaning.

After about an hour of crawling along at 30 mph, still in tears because I knew everyone behind me was pissed off, we hit an exit and I pulled off to allow everyone to pass. 

Every single vehicle followed me off that exit. 

I pulled into a truck stop and got out of the truck because I wanted to throw up from being so stressed.

So many people pulled up to thank us for leading the way because they were so scared and apparently my big a*s truck sort of parted the water and left sort of tracks they could follow. Many people said they could only see the lights on our truck through the rain and they figured if we could make it, they could, too. 

There was a motel there. All of us stayed the night. I will never do that again.

My grandfather was lifelong driver for CF and he was once stuck in a fog bank in California. Sitting there idling near the rear of the line he could not see why traffic was stopped but listening over the CB he learned there was an accident about a mile ahead. A car driver that was stopped behind him got out and walked up to my grandpa's door and climbed up the running board to talk to him. After filling him in and chatting for a bit he hopped down just in time to be completely barreled over by a furniture moving truck that couldn't stop . My grandpa said he was looking right in the man's face and could see sheer terror as soon as his feet hit the ground because he knew he f****d up. The truck just roared through and took him away. He said he sat there for like 2 hours listening to cars slamming into each other behind him and people crying and moaning. He lit off his road flares and threw them as far back as he could but it didn't matter because of how thick the fog was. He said you could not see 10 feet around you in any direction. But he had to sit there listening helplessly because of how dangerous it was to get out. My respect level for him reached over 9000 after that day.

There was a story on here a while back by a trucker who shared his creepiest experience while out on the road. It was getting very late (and very dark) so he pulled into a rest area off the highway in the middle of nowhere. The place was totally empty, meaning there weren't any other vehicles or people there.

While he was getting some shut eye inside his truck, he heard a faint sound of a barking dog that seemed to get louder and louder as time went by. Eventually the nasty barking sound was coming from right outside his driver side door. As he got up to look in the window, he didn't see a rabid dog but instead it was some... person looking directly at him, growling and trying to get in. He started the engine and got the heck out of there.

Not me but my dad. He was a career long-haul driver. The thing he said was the worst he's ever seen was he was driving along some interstate when a mini-van cut off the truck in front of him. It's been a few years since I heard the actual story, but I think it was like lost control due to weather or highway hypnosis somewhere out west. K**led the entire family, blood and body parts scattered across the freeway.

My dad had to physically restrain the other driver because after the shock set in he kept trying to run into traffic and k**l himself.

My Dad was driving down some interstate when it started raining really bad. He couldn't see more than a few feet in front of him so he pulled off somewhere and waited for the rain to pass. While he's waiting, he sees a sports car drive by followed not too far behind by a dump truck going way too fast for a large truck in those conditions. Finally the rain passes so he keeps going. A few miles up the road he comes upon a massive wreck. Apparently the dump truck had slammed right into the back of the sports car. There were 4 college kids in the car coming back from Spring Break.

He goes to see if anyone's injured and it's a blood bath. The 2 guys in the back died instantly, the driver died on the way to hospital, the guy in the passenger seat survived but he had to have both his legs amputated because they had been crushed by the dashboard. The dump truck driver survived with pretty much no injuries. A state trooper shows up and sees the wreckage. He goes up to the truck driver and punches him in the face. None of the other drivers said anything.

My squad leader told me about this one time when the truck in front got hit by an IED and due to the risk they had to leave them and reverse out of the area. An RPG hit them as they reversed, it didn't do much damage, so they continued. After about 2 hours of reversing (tight mountain roads) they almost drove right off the cliff. Everyone got out and one guy took the risk of getting all the trucks further down, so that only one guy got k**led if the truck would fall down. Everyone calls him cliffy now, and he received a medal but declined. Instead he asked it to be given to the wife of the guy who hit the IED. He didn't make it. Cliffy quit 5 weeks ago and now works at a gas station.

My friends father was a truck driver once and while driving behind another big rig a log came loose and slammed through his windshield. It hurt him pretty badly and hes got PTSD now from it. Hes alive, but it was pretty traumatic for him.

I stopped for a refill on my coffee at the 414 in Quebec.

Backed into a spot and in front of me was a livestock hauler..

Well.. they had stopped and opened the back and out came 1 goat.

53 foot trailer hired to transport 1 goat for 600 miles.

The goat was cute as hell and they had taken him out to play with him.. and yes I got to play with him as well.

I tend to keep to myself at truck stops... being a girl and all.

Not me but... a friend of mine told me a story when he was driving a truck from the US into Canada. He usually carries a gun of some kind, but could not take one into Canada. So one night in Canada, he wakes up to a guy in his truck. The guy looks right at him and stares at my friend without saying a word. The guy shows my friend that he has a machete, and then goes back to looking through my friend's stuff. Even though my friend could not carry... into Canada he was allowed a flare gun. My friend pulls [it] out and points it at the guy robbing him. The guy slowly get out of the truck, then takes off running away from the truck.

Not a trucker, but on the highway going from Maine to Killington VT, I saw a large bird swoop down right in front of a semi truck. When I didn't see the bird come out on the other side I was preparing to see feathers everywhere and a carcass to come bouncing out from under the trailer. Nothing. As I passed the truck, I looked over and saw a terrified turkey standing between the cab and the trailer like he was surfing! After a couple miles, I did get the driver to pull over.

Dad's a trucker. Anyway one night my dad was driving about a mile behind a guy her knew. He got on his radio and told the guy to be careful around the curve, it was really sharp and had a blind bend. He got back a "Yeah alright."

When he got to the curve the other guys semi was in the ditch. He got to the straight away, parked and rushed back to help the guy. When he got there the steering wheel was through the guys chest. His organs were everywhere.

TL;DR Steering wheel went through a guys chest during a crash.

My brother-in-law was a trucker for many years. He took his step son (my sister's son) with him on one run. They were somewhere in the rural south and hit a power/telephone line that was too low across the road. It seems hard to believe but it actually yanked one of the telephone poles out of the ground and it crashed through the passenger window and out the windshield and stuck there. Neither of them were seriously hurt, my nephew just got a few minor scratches from flying glass.

When I was getting my forklift certification I met the trucker lady who told me this story. A agricultural company was filling her trailer full of lettuce. It was in a huge lot where they were filling lots of trucks so the whole thing was being coordinated by these two managers, they were husband and wife. It was a rush job, so there were forklifts zipping about, full steam ahead. They fill up her truck, she leaves, and later that day she keeps getting calls and CB messages being passed around that they can't find the wife anywhere. They thought she had left her husband and taken off with one of the drivers. No one knew anything. When they finally unloaded her truck they found what had happened. The wife had got caught in front of a forklift as it was loading a giant crate of lettuce into the truck. It had carried her all the way to the front of the trailer and crushed her against the inside. Definitely dead. It was a really sad story especially as the trucker lady described how destroyed the husband was. I was not prepared to hear it at 7am on a Saturday before 12 hours of forklift certification.

Driving during a rain storm and seeing a bear with matted down fur walking on his rear legs like a person. Honestly thought it was bigfoot. Had to do a few double takes in my mirror when I passed him.

Pulled over to stay the night near the Arizona welcome center on I-40. I hear a light knocking on my door. An old lady wearing nothing but an oversized sweatshirt is standing outside. I roll down my window and ask what's up. In the tiniest, creepiest little voice she says that there's something in her car making a weird noise and that she needs help with it. I didn't help her.

I was the passenger for this, but on a long drive I accompanied my mom on we saw a man standing on the concrete divider at about 10pm. It was fall so it was dark out, and pouring rain. He was dressed as a jester, and it was on a stretch of poorly lit highway. She flinched and asked if I saw it; I said that I did and we watched as he walked slowly along the divider with his arms out a little to the sides. She pulled over because she was freaking out so bad and he started doing weird stuff - cartwheels and handstands and s**t. Weirdest thing ever.