Had a near catastrophe coming home when a Ford sedan side swiped me on passenger side while cruising down the interstate at 60mph. Felt a loud thump-thump then a metallic like bang. WTF was that?! I eased off the accelerator, it was night, traffic was light and thought I ran over a piece of tire or something but then looked over to my right and see this car had appeared to bounce off me and was swerving over towards the shoulder.

Now I'm cussing up a storm! Did that guy just side swipe me? Due to the thump and unnerving noise it made I figured there's got to be some ugly damage.

The thump was he drifted out of his lane to the left which I was in center lane (3 lanes on this section of highway) and his driver side rear quarter panel slammed into my right rear tire (which left deep black mars on his) then his front tire rubbed up against my chrome cab step (which left a small marring mark) and at this point his car bounced off me swerving off to the right. My truck never even budged or swerved out of lane, was barely even holding on the wheel when he hit. This was a straight as an arrow section of road so could of been much worse if this happened on a bend.

After he regained control which he's now up ahead of me I motioned to pull over and came up behind him on the shoulder. He immediately got out and admitted he drifted over the line and of course was terribly sorry. He was a much older guy than me so I quickly calmed myself, no point in losing my temper. He looked perfectly coherent (or at least he was now wide awake), no alcohol was involved or at least that I could smell.

I grabbed a flashlight and we both checked each others vehicles. On checking his damage I think he then realized just how lucky he was after seeing how high up the black marks on his car were and assessing the size of my truck. We exchanged info and went on our merry way.

The side step was not knocked loose nor bent and no tear damage to my tire. Think my 20" wheels and those rock solid side steps saved me from very $$$ damage. Damn, I was sure lucky or should I say he was extremely lucky! Needless to say I'll now be extra paranoid next time traveling down that section of highway. Not sure I could of prevented this from happening. Maybe having those LED running board lights would have prevented, dunno. Sorry for the novel but learned those chrome side steps serve a double duty purpose.

 

Wow! Glad that dude was ok. That could have been a lot worse.

 

Glad all is ok. Go out and adjust your lower "fish eye" mirrors. When they are set up, you have zero blind spot and can watch your sides like a hawk.

Most folks don't realize they can be moved.