A truck driver in the US might spend around 3500 hours a year behind the wheel, so a seasoned trucker has seen their fair share of stuff. As it turns out, being alone in a cabin, driving through empty highways does mean you’ll sometimes encounter something unnerving.

Someone asked truck drivers to share the most shocking, creepy and scary stories they’ve had from working on the road. Be warned, some of these are dark. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote the most interesting and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

#1

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.

Image credits: SlapxOxHappy

#2

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.

Image credits: Nusi218

#3

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.

Image credits: lastof13

#4

One of the guys at the company I work with got into a lot of trouble because he had a blow up doll in the passenger seat buckled in and everything.

Image credits: anon

#5

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.

Image credits: Devilishlygood98

#6

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.

Image credits: Detached09

#7

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.

Image credits: kehteh

#8

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.

Image credits: fratuzzi

#9

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.

Image credits: YellowerClimes

#10

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.

Image credits: ladycowbell

#11

I was in california, it was my second year trucking so it must have been 2004. The guy I was driving with was old school and was teaching me the ropes. Bout 230am he wakes me up and says you’ve got to see this! There is a big commotion going on out in the lot and police are starting to show up. Eventually locks were cut and the doors to the trailer come open and out flies 500 starving, stinking, scared Asians. It reminds me of cockroaches or cats scattering like you see in the hoarder shows. What came next may have been the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I doubt the cops ever caught them all because a lot ran straight for the woods, but some would come back and open doors for their friends who had been captured. To watch the police chase these people around in circles then to see their face when they would bring their new catch to the holding van just to see the doors wide open and empty was hilarious!

Image credits: Bornsavage1983

#12

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.

Image credits: restless_and_bored

#13

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.

Image credits: anon

#14

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.

Image credits: moonpilot

#15

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.

Image credits: k0mk0v

#16

My dad was working as a driver that would just do short runs for different companies whenever they needed someone bad. He got called to run a truck out to some research facility (I honestly forget where. I was like 8). He gets there and the trailer has a refer set to freezing. He’s given very specific instructions. Don’t stop. If you break down call this # immediately. Any problems. Call this #. Bla bla. He said it felt like he was on a secret mission. They didn’t tell him what exactly was in the truck but he knew it didn’t weigh anything. He gets to where he’s going and they unload. It was fu**king bodies. Like when you donate your bodies to science. He claims there was only 2 in the entire trailer.

Image credits: manypuppies

#17

Delivering in Compton (yes that Compton) and witnessing a rather slow meandering police chase involving an obviously chemically altered man in a stolen backhoe. Im not dure he knew exactly how to drive it but he (seemingly unintentionally) kept running into objects and parked cars and seemed surprised every time. Went on for about 10 minutes.

Image credits: spotries

#18

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.

Image credits: amazonallie

#19

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.

Image credits: anon

#20

I was on my fathers Boar’s Head truck about 12 years ago in Brooklyn, I was about 14 years old at the time. I was working over the summer with him to make some money to build a computer and buy a hockey stick (priorities man!), anyway, we were at a deli (Mile End’s I think was the name), and my dad was unloading some cheese and meet onto the handtruck while I got paperwork out of the cab. I opened the passenger door and there is a homeless man rummaging through the milk crate my dad kept his lunch and radio in. I didn’t even hesitate, I gave the man my bologna and cheese sandwich. (Fresh italian bread, fresh provolone, bologna and f****n’ heaps of miracle whip, from the previous deli we delivered too, basically the best, most freshest f****n’ bologna and cheese ever.) He took it and slowly closed the door and walked away…my dad didn’t believe me when I told him, and thought I was just trying to get half of his lunch. My mom called my dad a f****n’ a*****e that night and didn’t want me working on his truck anymore. Needless to say I was there the next day.

Image credits: lil_waynes_colon

#21

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.

Image credits: BLUMPKINFORCE

#22

‘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.

Image credits: TheSmashPosterGuy

#23

My BF is a trucker and he was on the highway somewhere in the northeast with a few other guys and this man in a sedan was making eyes at them and then proceeded to take out a di**o and curve it along the steering wheel and just held it there while he drove.

Image credits: anon

#24

I saw a coiled up football scarf on the ground at a service station in the UK, it was German team either Werder Bremen or Wolfsburg and I thought to myself that’s a bit odd to be here. I went over and tried to pick it up and wrapped up inside was the biggest t**d I’ve ever seen. I got the f**k out of there and am now suspicious of the diets of most Bundesliga fans I meet.

Image credits: Rothead

#25

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.

Image credits: Paul_Char

#26

Not a trucker, but a neighbour of mine’s son was. One night he was parked up asleep in his cab and someone stole his load. Then they set fire to the truck with him in it still asleep.

He didn’t get out in time.

Image credits: suspecrobot

#27

Crawfordsville, IN off I74. Was driving to a tournament with my team in college (rugby, and a bunch of us were from inner city Chicago so we had our heads about us). We needed dinner so stopped there to grab food. I don’t think there was one normal thing on the whole town. People literally stared at our cars. The girl in the drive through (we were already too creeped out to stop to eat) had her hair in braids that stood up and looked like worms. The whole experience was just really strange. It felt like the beginning of a Stephen King novel, and both cars felt the same way without talking to each other. If you’re from there, I hope your town isn’t as creepy as it seemed.

Image credits: MizStazya

#28

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 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 [roll] 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 [rolled] 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….”

#29

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.

Image credits: anon

#30

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…

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 [passed].

#31

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.

#32

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 sh*t 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 [wild] 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*cking 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…

I did see a discarded fire extinguisher on the ground at the base of the mountain though.

#33

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 sh*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 [gone].

#34

I’ve seen fist fights at the fuel islands. Over people not pulling up (a big deal for us drivers).

Had an RV crawl up alongside me once in Indiana. I have a habit of looking over when folks get up along side me to check and see if they are paying attention to the road or their phone or dozing off… Anyway, I glance over to see how old this couple in this rv may be. I was surprised to find the driver was maybe 30, tops. He looks over and smiles and as sure as God’s got sandals the next second later a young naked woman is bent over the passenger side of the dash and is being, um, acted upon by another young naked woman with what appears to be a horse shaped and sized d***o. Having seen this p***o before, I clicked the cruise back a notch or two and let them go on.

I was in deep south Texas coming out of Laredo. A Mexican truck (you can spot one easy when you know what to look for) starts coming up along side me. He gets up next to me and no one is at the wheel. I see two straps on the wheel and can only assume the dude was attempting to drive from the sleeper with a set of reigns. I backed way off and let them get on up ahead of me. Saw them (three of these assclowns in one truck) later at the border check on 35 in cuffs.

I was running on Kansas highway 96 out of Great Bend early one morning. Dawn was just peeking over the horizon back to the east. I rounded the curve out of town heading west when I see Bambi and the gang crossing the road. Must have about 12 or more of them. I get up in the middle of the road and lay on the air horn. They stop crossing, but they all start running along on both side of the road in the direction I’m going. I get back on the throttle and just as I come up on the group, I see two of the deer on the north side deciding they now want to join the group on the south side. Reflexes kicked in and I jumped into the oncoming lane to avoid them. I saw ones face clear as day as my fender and door went past him. He didn’t hit the front corner of my trailer or my drives, luckily. However, he did hit his head on the side of my trailer. It must have been enough to daze him as I watch him fall and get hit by my back hopper on the side. He went under my trailer tandems where he exploded. I was over gross weight so he didn’t stand a chance. I pulled over about a mile up the road where it was wide enough to do so (two lane) and went to look over my trailer. I didn’t see any marks on my trailer or hopper, nor anything much on the trailer tandems. The only thing left was a tuft of fur or two and blood dripping off both mudflap. RIP R****d Bambi.

#35

Coming upon Big Butter Jesus at 3 am, in the fog, startled me.

Scariest was waking up getting thrown all over the sleeper. Co-driver got hit by a car going 80 MPH the wrong way down the interstate.

#36

When police put up tarps alongside accidents all to often we can see over them. I wish they would use taller tarps. I always made sure not to look but every once in awhile you would see lots of blood or a stretcher with a sheet drawn over a body. Once it was only a small lump. I tell myself it was probably someone’s leg. That seems a better plausible alternative.

Everyday was a countdown to a WTF moment. Pushy lot lizards, a few crooked cops, my dispatcher sending me to the wrong state, or the constant flow of cars trying to k**l you. Loved the machines but f**k that job.

EDIT: I almost forgot. There was that time my boss had me delivering fish through a forest fire with a leaking reefer tank to West Point. Ah to be young and fearing you will never find another job.

#37

My dad is a truck driver, he doesnt do really long hauls but just around town, so he was hauling gravel trains, so he had 2 trailers on. But he was also following another person who was hauling the same thing(sand) but as he was going along they were coming up to a curve and there was a guy standing on the side of the road. Sadly the guy decided he wanted to take his life so he dived infront of the truck (not my dads but the guy he was following) So my dad just saw all the splatter from the aftermath(you can imagine being run over by an 18 wheeler), but also he had to drive the truck to the police station for a investigation afterwards since the actual driver was pretty shaken up. And about a week later they found the guys car left in a parking lot with a sucide note inside of it.

#38

My Grandma (turns 100 in June this year) likes to tell this story about my Grandfather.

They owned a farm and would deliver produce all over. Grandpa would load up a truck (I’m guessing something like a big 2-ton flatbed) and make deliveries from their home in southeastern Minnesota to Milwaukee, Madison, but most notably Chicago.

During prohibition, while making a big delivery to Chicago, he got stopped by a bunch of gangsters in the city. Held at gunpoint while they made sure he wasn’t hauling moonshine. When they confirmed it was just produce, he was allowed to go on his way. Turns out they were Al Capone’s men.

#39

I’ve been an OTR truck driver for about 4 years now and have some to add.

My wife and I were parked at a Pilot truck stop in California along the I10 and we’re eating in the front seat of our truck just people watching. We noticed this truck pull up to the scale and watched as this huge shirtless fat guy opened his door and took his tiny d**k out and just pissed all over the place. He looked around after he was done thinking no one saw but we did.

Another somewhat funny story is my wife was driving on a city road in Denver and we were bob tailing. She was driving 10mph over the speed limit and this backroad and this pigeon was just standing in the road. Well she didn’t notice it but I did and told her, and just as I did she ran him over. I looked in the mirror while it happened and saw a huge poof of feathers fly up. The guy in the car behind us ended up catching up to us a stop light and was almost in tears laughing.

Because I’m on my 30 minute break I’ll write a couple more.

I like to call my wife the hunter because she has a streak of running over animals since she drives nights. We were on backroad a in Kentucky by Bowling Green headed to a truck stop and we approached a deer off the side of the highway, we were a little cautious so my wife drove in the middle of the road so we didn’t have to get to close to it. Well the b*****d ended up running into the side of our straight truck and I’m assuming we ran its head over, because when we got to the truck stop the whole side of our utility box behind the rear tires was splattered with brain matter and blood. My wife has hit 3 deer, a possum, a raccoon and 3 birds. Hell we still have blood splatter on our right door from one of the recent ones that flew into our mirror.

This one was pretty crazy. We were driving on a highway in the mountains headed to Utah it was the middle of the night and I happened to be driving. I got passed on a curve by another semi truck who eventually got into the right lane. Well I have no idea if he was texting or falling asleep but he swerved to the right and almost went off the side of the cliff. Lucky he swerved about a foot from the edge and I’m pretty sure he s**t his pants.

#40

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 [butt] 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] 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.

#41

Missouri, I stopped at an off ramp to stretch out and take a breather. As I’m smoking a [cig], a little girl from some direction I couldn’t figure out giggles and says “Hi, mister!”. My initial reaction was “The f*ck 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 [cig] 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.

#42

Kent, TX. 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 [pee]. 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 fire pit. 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 [peed] 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.

#43

New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah are some states that to this day, I still see sh*t 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 [pee]. And decided to turn it into a 15 minute break since my [butt] 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.

#44

Trucker here. 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 [taking] 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.

#45

My favourite was a story I was told about a guy driving in Germany with a girl in the passenger seat (frowned upon, but you can get away with it, also she was a friend, not a h**ker) when she decides she will lay in the bed. Now that’s illegal since if the truck crashes, there’s no safety belt. The bed was above the cabin. Few minutes later the driver misses a roadwork and crashes the truck on the right front side. Passenger seat gone. Girl saved her life.

#46

Not a driver, but a dispatcher.

One of my drivers called in a few months ago because he hit a bald eagle with his truck. Sent me a picture, and was running 2 hours behind schedule because he had to call the cops about it. This was in GA too. Didn’t even realize they were around there.

#47

One of my favorite stories of my grandpa. He was always known as being a badass like all grandpas are. So my grandpa was a trucker after Vietnam. He got a flat and when he went to change it he couldn’t get one of the lug nuts off and he put his whole strength into trying to get it off. He tried so hard he broke the tire iron and when it broke, the tire iron hit his shin breaking his leg in half. The bone was sticking out and stuff too. The time was near midnight and there were barely any cars on the road so he had to throw rocks at traffic until someone stopped and took him to the hospital.

#48

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.

#49

My uncle was a long haul trucker for 25 years. He said the weirdest place was rural Texas. He had been driving towards Dallas and stopped in some small town for food. He said everyone in the diner stared at him like he “had an arm growing out of his face.” Even the waitress barely acknowledged him, just put his food down without a word. He ate quickly, slapped some money on the table and left without another word. I can’t remember the name of the town and he passed away a few years ago so I can’t exactly ask him.

#50

Driving from Albuquerque to Socorro. I was on a stretch with no lights. Perfectly dark. I notice someone standing on the side of the road. As I pass him, my lights fully illuminate his face. Nothing about this guy seemed natural. His posture was weird, he was wearing a gray suit… and his face. It just looked ‘off’, like a mask or something. For about half a second, we lock eyes, even with my headlights blinding him, it still felt like he was looking at me, not my truck. It really creeped me the f*ck out. Shortly after this, my CB started picking up some odd chirps, but I was pretty close to the VLA.

#51

[I’m ] heading west into and icy weather. Roads are fine so far. I should still be an hour or so from the storm so I’m doing about 65 up and down the mountains.

As I’m coming down a step grade I decide to turn my radio on and ask eastbound how the roads are being them. Right as I grab my mic a guy comes on telling “westbound back her down! Black ice in the curve at the bottom post the 223” (or whatever mile marker I was at). I catch the next marker and realize oh sh*t that’s for me.

I’m full with 44000lbs of bananas going down a steep hill with a curve at the end with only a guardrail separating the road from a 300ft drop.

I got it down to about 30mph before I entered the curve and felt my steer tires start to slip and the trailer trying to push my a** end around.

#52

The howling trailers comes to mind.

There’s a dog food distribution plant in Flagstaff, AZ. They require you to drop your trailers doors open. It is always windy in Flagstaff.

At night, in their dimly lit parking lot, all I heard was the evil howl of the wind passing over the open trailers. It was similar to the noise that you make when blowing over a soda bottle, except a thousand times louder as the chilling wild wind blows thru you.

I’m not very religious, I’m not very superstitious, but for the fifteen minutes I was dropping and hooking, my heart was pounding and I was looking over my shoulder.

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