A Close Call!

I like to drive at night more than in the day as a usual rule. As you may know, night driving is quite a bit different than day driving. It has its pros and cons. I like it because there are less people out and about, less law enforcing individuals, usually the scales, the places where they pull trucks in and try to find reasons to fine us drivers, are closed, most of the traffic is trucks and most of them are "good time" drivers. We get out there and stroll along talkin trucker trash on channel one nine and have a large time. I get more of a "lone wolf" feeling when I'm out there by my self, riding under the stars. On the other hand, every mile has something unseen, hiding in the dark, just waiting to take me by surprise. It could be a tight curve that I missed the warning sign for, a deer, a drunk hitch hiker stumbling down the shoulder of the road, a teenager waiting to throw a pumpkin off of an over pass. Yes, all of these have happened to me.

Wednesday morning, just before daylight, I was north bound on I39, heading for La Crosse, WI. I had just left Bloomington, IL with full fuel tanks and a thermos of hot coffee. I had The Doobie Brothers rocking on the radio, and the cb turned up loud enough that I could hear it over the stereo. There was a few drivers talking about this and that, chrome shops, truck stops, a waitress named Flo, how she wiggles when she walks and how fast them trucks can go. I wasn’t paying much attention to them as they were going south and fading out of radio range. I lit a smoke, checked my mirrors and set my gaze back at the end of my headlight beams. All is well so I pour a cup of coffee. Just as I am putting the lid back on my thermos I see something big and dark in the road. I instantly go into defense mode and throw my thermos in the floor, loose lid and all. The big object can't be more than 200 feet in front of me. I've driven somewhere around a million miles and never had an at fault accident and I'll be dammed if its going to happen tonight! Now what the hell is that in the road?! There is a pickup running door to door with me, I'm on the brakes but not slowing down fast enough. I can't stop 79,000 pounds on a dime. They are going to give me some room whether they want to or not. I move over to straddle the zipper (that’s the dotted line for you non truckin folks) and the pickup hits the shoulder. All the sudden I see hazard lights start flashing on the object and a man standing in front of it. ITS A CAR broke down, half on the shoulder, half in the right lane. Right about now, my heart is running wild and adrenaline is pumping at an unimaginable rate. I grip the wheel tighter and hold my breath as I prepare for impact. Im thinking "If I kill someone this morning because of their stupidity, it will be my fault because I'm a truck driver." It's always the truck driver’s fault. That’s just the way it works, we are guilty until proven innocent, the opposite of the general public. I think about all the things that they would try to bust me on. They have nothing on me. My equipment is in good repair, I haven’t sent any texts (that’s a fine of up to $2750 for a truck driver by the way) but I did receive one about 10 minutes ago... not close enough to present time to count. Good, nothing to bust me on! I'm right on top of the car and I see the man in front of it jump to the grass to the right. I watch the car disappear under the right side of my hood. I look in my mirror to see if it went sliding through the ditch. No, it is still there and the driver behind me said "Damn Paris, I don’t know how you missed that, but you done good!" It took a little bit for what he had said to register in my head. When it did, the most relaxed feeling seemed to start at my head and flow to my feet, followed by a soreness that I really don’t know how to explain. Then I realized that I have to do something that no one ahead of me did. I have to warn others behind me. I know I’ve passed at least a dozen trucks in the hour since I left Bloomington and a few of them had radios on, so I grab the CB mic. “North bound, ya got a broke down four wheeler in the granny lane about the 61 and a half.” Now, how about that coffee and another smoke?

I can’t help but wonder so many things about this. Why did nobody say anything about it before I got there? I know that there were trucks ahead of me. Did they even have a radio? Were they as overwhelmed with the situation as I was? What was the idiot thinking, stopping his car in the line of traffic, with NO lights on? How do you not know to get as far off the road as you can when your vehicle dies? What must the person driving the pick up that I forced to the shoulder be thinking about me? Did they see what was going on or just see me as the ass hat in the big truck? All I know for sure is that I avoided the accident and the rest of my day went off without a hitch. I delivered my load of corn meal safely, picked up a load of seed corn to bring back to IL and got to see a friend that I haven’t seen for ages when I stopped for my ten hour break in WI.