That truck is gigantic and very heavy, the driver often drives for hours and hours on insufficient sleep, and the highway is an unpredictable place.
But what happens when it ceases to be simply "dangerous" and goes a whole step further?
Some Redditors who are truck drivers themselves--or at least know someone who is--shared the stories of the creepiest things that have ever occurred while driving the rig.
sinoxx_the_maymayer asked, "Truck drivers of reddit, what is the creepiest thing that has happened to you while on the job?"
A Tragic Mess
"There are several truckers in my family. The worst story would have to be when one of them witnessed a motorcycle accident of a father carrying his 8 year old son on the back."
"They had just left court where the Father had won full custody."
"I'll spare details, but somehow they hit into another semi and went under. It was a gruesome and heartbreaking thing for them to witness."
-- Pure-Astronomer-5497
Opportunist
"Many years ago before GPS and smartphones, picking up meat downtown Chicago. Got lost, and came upon a bridge I couldn't get under."
"Dude on the corner yells at me and says for $25 he'll get me back to the highway. I agree, he hops up on drivers door steps. Dude gets me right back to the highway."
"I pull out the 25 bucks, he pulls a knife telling me to give him everything I got."
"I roll up the window, and start getting on the entrance ramp to I-94. Got up to about 35 mph before he finally jumped off."
A Shakedown
"One other time, pulling out of same meat plant. Get stuck at a stop light to get on the highway."
"There was one truck ahead of me at the light. Bunch of people standing on the corner. I assumed they were waiting on the bus."
"Next thing I know, they are breaking the doors open on the trailer of the truck in front of me. Like an assembly line throwing boxes of meat to each other."
"I holler at the driver on the CB, she pops out with a gun. Thankfully I was far enough away from her that I could get around and get he hell out of there."
-- jn-indianwood
A Haunted Road
"My dad's coworker was a dump truck driver. Idk of that counts."
"One night he ran over a horse and buggy. He could hear the people screaming and the horse screaming and the wood and metal grinding under his truck."
"When he got out of the truck there was nothing there. Eventually he went on his way, stopped at the next place he saw that was open which happened to be a little all night diner."
"The waitress pouring his coffee asked him if he'd been in an accident with his truck because he was white as a sheet and shaking."
"There had been a gruesome accident with a horse and buggy years back. And every once in a while someone would come in telling the same story about hitting an Amish buggy that disappeared."
-- Chaithecat
Brush With the Wild
"My dad's been a truck driver for six years now. He told me his scariest experience was when he stopped in Colorado to take a nap because he was getting sleepy after an 11 hour drive."
"He said the truck stop he was at was completely surrounded by a forest that went for miles."
"After about an hour or so he suddenly woke up to a loud thump on his hood. He slowly got up and moved the curtains that separate the beds from the drivers seat and lo and behold were two of 'biggest wolves he'd ever seen' he said."
"They gave him a deadpan stare as soon as they noticed him. My dad immediately honked his horn and they jumped off, yet he said he didn't sleep after that."
"He later grabbed his gun after he thought it was safe and went for a coffee. Then resumed his drive."
"His story didn't sound that scary, until I looked up the size of a wolf. Apparently, those f***ers are huge."
-- SterileParanoia
Not an Apparition, a Suspect
"Not a truck driver, but my dad is. One day, two years ago, I hadn't got school, so he decided to make me go to work with him to keep him company. He had to travel to another city about 45 km from where we live."
"To get to this city, you have to pass a road in the countryside with not a single soul around."
"So, while he was driving, I was looking outside the truck windows, when I saw something so creepy... There was a woman staring at us standing in a field."
"I decided to concentrate on the music coming from the radio."
"Later that day, the news reports that a woman who escaped the prison had been arrested again... I realized that I saw that woman..."
-- No-Cheesecake-
More Wildlife
"My uncle was a trucker and he pulled over because he saw a baby bear by the road."
"He was playing with it when the momma bear showed up."
"He made it back to the cab but she took a swipe at the door and her claws dug an inch into the metal and left behind curls in the metal. This was in the 70s."
-- Chaithecat
Not What You Expect to See Out There
"Not me, but an ex-girlfriend's cousin's uncle (Yeah, I know its a friend of a friend situation, but it was a well known tale among the family)."
"He was driving on a Mexican road at night. He felt a call of nature, so he parked on the sideway and jumped off the truck. He walked to relief himself and while doing that he felt a presence beside him."
"He pointed his flashlight at his side and saw, standing besides him, a small deformed person. It was naked and had both its head and face bloated. And he was standing just there."
"The driver (ex-gf's cousin's uncle) ran away to his truck, jumped in, and drove away from there."
-- CharlyVazquez
Glimpsing a Well-Known Legend
"Got to see The Black Dog."
"Had been running a long week and long hours in an industry very similar to truck driving but less regulated."
"I can't say how many hours I had been driving that day but the people talking on the radio had stopped making sense; they had faded into a white noise din along with the ever present whistle of wind and turbo."
"I had stopped babbling to stay occupied. I was driving as a robot and not fully aware of where on the familiar mountain route I was."
"The beast was beside the truck and the size of a car in the shoulder lane. It was keeping pace at 70 mph but the legs moved slower."
"It was like a shadow and had form but when you looked, it disappeared. It existed only in my peripheral."
"The Black Dog is said to be an omen of death and they aren't wrong. I wasn't falling asleep (the energy shooters were making sure of that) but my brain was entirely shutting down."
"It's something buried in in your subconscious that can only be accessed in your deepest primordial lizard brain. At first it was confusing but not scary; though I should have been scared."
"I should have slept but chose to continue on and end my week in my bed. I could have died or killed a van full of nuns and orphans coming back from free puppy day at the shelter."
"I chose to keep trucking and that choice made me the monstrous demon in the night."
-- dirty_hooker
"Not even close"
The only thing that happened to me was an hour-long traffic delay but the experience was creepy as hell. Eastern Tennessee, I-26 northbound. I finally round the corner to see the accident.
It was a Fed Ex semi that had run into the trees on the right. This was instantly apparent because there were literally FedEx packages in the trees, like 40 feet in the air, dozens of them. That was a little bit creepy.
So one's eyes always look to see the damage to the tractor. Did the driver survive, one wonders? I was going slow enough to get a good look. The trailer was mangled but identifiable. The tractor was missing. There was no way they had removed it, it was just not there.
It was the only time I actually got rattled by something like that. My hands started shaking, I had a fight or flight response in my body. Despite the delay, I had to stop at the first rest area and walk it off.
I get out, and see another driver pull in. He gets out and looks like I feel, unsteady on his feet. We talk. I ask him about the missing tractor. He says he was stopped there long enough to figure it out.
The engine was at the base of the big ass tree. The two sides of the cab went way past the tree on either side. The chassis was in several chunks.
Survival? Not even close.
spacester
Concrete jungle
Not a truck driver but my dad is one. He was in New York City and asked a guy on the street for directions. The man jumped up on the side of the cab and told him directions but then also demanded money for the directions. My dad was dumbstruck but obliged and gave him a few dollars but then the guy started to get belligerent but my dad just started to drive and the guy jumped off the side of the truck but it always creeped me out thinking of what might have happened.
cherrytreebee
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