I was on my way home from work. Merged onto highway 50 from highway 97. Speed limits are 55 and 65 MPH, respectively.

Anyhow, I get into the middle lane, going 65 in a 55, and it's raining pretty hard. After about a minute, a big rig approaches, moving *real* fast. He gets right up on my bumper (once again, I'm going 10MPH over the speed limit, in the middle lane, and it's raining out) and then scoots over to the left lane.

I figure "fine. Go right ahead." At this point I start slowing down about (to about 63MPH or so).

Anyway, he's towing a big trailer behind him (just a generic looking 18 wheeler type setup - I'm not too familiar with all the big trucks) and decides he's going to try to scare me. He hits the right turn signal, and starts coming over. At this point, his trailer isn't even halfway past me. He starts coming over and realizes that I have nowhere to go, and I'm not moving, so he swings back into the left lane. I'd estimate that his trailer came about 3 feet from the side of my mirror.

He then stomps on it, cuts over in front of me (I still haven't changed my speed at all so far) and slams his brakes on, slowing down to 40MPH (once again, we're in a 55!)

I slow down with him instead of scrambling out of the way. I'm guessing that really boiled his bottom, 'cause he stepped on it and took off like a rocket.

I can't think of what I did to torque this guy off so bad - I was just cruising along, minding my own business, and he gets all nutty on me.

Maybe he was having a bad day or something. Either way, I hope he gets bad diarrhea just for being a jerk.

Thanks for hearing my rant.

XXL

 

People like that give truck drivers a bad name
Glad you came home safe

 

Too bad you didn't get his license plate number. Glad nothing happened, you are at a weight dis-advantage.

 

Glad you made it back!
Playing with big fast moving things in the rain is a total outrage.
I've seen this type of thing happen before. I was going down a 2 lane freeway one night out in the boonies with no traffic at all except me, another car and a semi. For some reason this trucker did not want anybody to pass him and when the other car tried to pass, the trucker jumped into the left lane and sent this poor guy right off the road. The guy in the car kept control, made it back on the freeway, and tried to pass again. The truker tried the same thing but this time the car hit his brakes and fell behind the truck. After that the other car just stayed back...So did I.

 

Truck drivers are the worst in bad weather. I had a trucker do something similar when it was blowing snow across the interstate. I learned from a police class that the best thing to do is call them in. Also, if they have a "How's my driving?" sticker, call there. I just did that to a van that was tailgating at 75mph in a 60 saturday morning. It is very satisfying knowing that the guy will be getting a butt chewing on monday.

 

Always get a license # and any other info you can about a driver and vehicle whenever you witness a road rage incident etc. While your report may not trigger any action, if there are multiple reports or they form a history, the authorities will keep a watch out.

 

Not that I am defending the guy, but, since you were able to make this post, he must not have tried very hard.

 

How about "Truck driver threatened my personal welfare tonight"?

Eric - that's the wierd thing - I couldn't see any identifying anything on the truck. No "how's my driving" sticker, and the license plate was bent up so I couldn't see.

XXL

 

It's sad that people like this give truckers a bad name. It's too bad you couldn't of reported him.

 

I don't know where you get your information, but I think your wrong there.
Truck drivers have to drive in the snow, most normal people don't.
THey learn very quickly how and where to drive, and if they can't, and act stupid they don't drive very long (IE... FIRED)
Truck Drivers are actually very good drivers, and could out drive any normal person in any situation.
Maybe you guys should actually talk to a knowledgable driver of a 18 wheeler sometime, not just the "a-hole" that cut me off
Maybe it was because they couldn't see you
There is a rule "If you can't see their mirrors, they can't see you"
That was not pertaining to Matt, but just letting you all know some of the rules.

On Edit:
Flashing the headlights is a good thing (as Mil1ion states below) that's universal code for them. Also, I have a CB in my truck and I use it quite a bit.

 

I always give them a couple flashes of the headlights to let them they can back into the lane with No Problem.


Driving a rig for 20 years gives you an appreciation for sharing the road with Good Driver's.

 

wow. Its a good thing you're ok! I really have no tolerance for road rage and jerks like that. But what can you do? If you let it get to you, you only become part of the problem. I have a lot of respect for many truck drivers and I think they're wrongly labled many times, but there are deffinitly bad ones out there that think they're invulnerable to anything and can outdrive anything. A truck driver almost killed my sister near Seattle about a year ago - he was going too fast for the rainy conditons and lost control on the wet freeway - my sister was in the adjacent lane and the truck batted her right off the freeway into the ditch and the truck went into the ditch ahead of her - it took out the whole drivers side of her car and shattered the windows. She was lucky to get out with only a couple minor cuts and bumps/bruises. Needless to say she was pretty sore for a while. The truck driver was terrified he killed her and in a way I felt bad for him because that might have ended his career - but you just can't gamble with those things and when you're reckless or not paying attention - especially when lives are at stake I can't feel that bad for them. Hopefully it was a lesson well learned for the driver though.

-Aaron

 

I am glad that you are O.K. we need someone to keep terrorist scum out of our planes

I always try to help out truck drivers when I can... Lord knows they put up with more dumb drivers than anyone else. This guy sounded like a jerk though.... his day will come.

 

Trucking companies are always looking for drivers (look at your employment section of the newspaper, over half is for truckers and nurses). Sometimes they hire someone who should never hae been allowed behind the wheel, let alone beind the wheel of a truck. Eventually these guys get weeded out and in the mean time everyone hopes they don't kill someone. By the same reasoning though, you can literally kill a few people from behind the wheel of your car and keep your liscense.

 

yeah, and evidenly they don't have a clue what happens when they pass and there is a lot of slush and snow on the road. Yesterday I was bringing my kids to my house from their mom's house, was snowing like crazy, but the roads were driveable if you used good sense. There were 2 lanes of traffic in each direction on this highway. I was following a semi and we were doing about 45-50, as the lane we were on was plowed and pretty much clear. the other lane was snow packed and had a bunch of slush in it. I look out my rearview mirror and what do I see? another semi going at least 65 in the snow packed, slushy lane. as he passed me, his wheels threw all that slush up on the windshield,and the van started fishtailing because of the wind turbulence, and we had hit a part of the road that wasn't plowed.I slowed down, got the winshield cleared, and regained control. then turned on my cb, and tried to get the dumba** to answer up for what he just did......I couldn't get him to answer me, but the trucker in front of me chewed his butt pretty good, and he did answer the trucker and acted like he didn't realize what he had done