Driving a truck on the open road is physically and mentally exhausting.
Meanwhile, the road is an unforgiving opponent you must overcome with multiple cups of coffee and a sharp deadline.
With such late drives you're sure to see things you may not be sure of.
Things that may haunt your memories until you feel like you need to talk about them on the internet.
Reddit user, smithtiger, wanted to hear the terrifying tales when they asked:
"Truckers of Reddit, what is something you have witnessed driving at night that gave you chills?"
The Devil's Riding High
I25 south of Albuquerque, there's a huge dip, straight down one side of a canyon and up the other. I'm a very safe driver, so i took the downgrade slow and crawled up the other side with my hazards on. Looking in my mirror i see headlights from another truck at the bottom, then 2 jets of flame shoot like 20 feet into the air above it. This truck runs past me doing 80 up the slope. I didn't even know it was possible to put nitrous into a semi, i know it ain't legal, but i thought the devil himself was riding up on me.
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"Mooseicide"
My mom drove truck for several years with her ex-boyfriend. She loves to tell the story of hitting a moose.
Guess she was tooling along middle of the night in Northern Ontario. Area is well known for dumb a** animals jumping out and killing people.
Anywho, she said she saw this massive beast charge right out of the ditch. Instantly she gunned the gas, and Bullwinkle plows into the edge of the trailer-where the rivets meet the edge. She hears a loud thud. Pulls over, shaken.
Her ex was sleeping in the bunk and woke up when the truck stopped.
Mom gets put, expecting to find the truck totaled. Nope. As she tells it, all she found for damage was a small blood smear and a dent on the 3 inch rivet section. Moose was splayed Bambi style a block behind. Her boyfriend was freaking out when she told him about the moose.
Pretty miraculous actually. Animal commits Mooseicide, and truck still drive able.
They ended up waiting all night for the OPP to drive by and call in animal removal.
She's pretty legendary in the trucking world for it. No one could believe they walked away.
A Foreboding Sense Of What's Coming
Truckie's daughter.
My father told a story of a time he had a horrid nightmare about wheels. He thought it was creepy but brushed it off. Less than a week later, he was on a long haul and it was very late at night. He came down a steep descent into a corner and as he rounded the corner came across a bad accident involving a large truck and it's trailers, flipped upside down. All he could see was wheels.
March Of The Tarantulas!
A tarantula migration crossing the road. Freaky.
Wtf!?? they do that?...did you run them over?
Yes they do. It was like a horror movie. I'm afraid I ran over quite a few, I certainly wasn't going to stop the car in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a bunch of tarantulas. They do that in horror movies and it never ends well.
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You Might Say They Were "Of The Corn?"
Driving on a country backroad in Indiana in the wee hours of the morning. Nothing but telephone poles and cornfields all around. Then something at the edge of the corn field. Looked like two kids standing with their backs to the road looking into the corn.
Didn't move
didn't look up, nothin. Just two kids stood there staring into the cornfield at like 2am.
When You Do Everything You Can And Someone Still Messes It Up
My dad, a truck driver in the Netherlands for about 30 years now was leaving our town at 3am-ish to do the deliveries to the stores. He drives off with a colleague and a kilometre outside my town he hits the brakes because there's a horse on the road (alive). His colleague behind him stops as well and is informed about the situation over the CB radio. Two trucks which look the same (both yellow-blue Scania box trucks with an additional blue trailer) are standing still on a B-road in the middle of the night.
A guy pulls up behind them in an Audi A6 stationwagon. He, of course, did not know what was going on and after a few minutes (the horse wasn't moving) he got very annoyed with the trucks standing still so he absolutely floored it to go past them. He crashed into the horse, killing it and totaling his car. Guy went to the hospital and this all happened under the eye of my father. Pretty terrifying sh-t.
The guy ended up surviving but my dad was pretty messed up about it.
So, We're All A Little Guilty Of Being Freaky
The amount of people "driving" while staring at their phones.
Just A Little Time Off
There's another driver where I work that tells a story about driving through the desert in Arizona back in the 80's with nothing around for miles when he broke down in the middle of the night- it was an easy fix (his fuel filter was clogged- he drained it a little to free up the fuel and got the truck running about 15 minutes later), he took off down the highway when he saw a man that was out of breath on the side of the highway that was staring at him as he passed..
he said it looked like the guy had been running toward him until he got his truck running and drove away..
He said if he had been there a few more minutes the guy would've been able to walk up on him with his head in the engine bay. He said the look on the guys face gave him chills and telling the story you could see it still creeped him out.
"Don't worry about it."
Not me but a friend, saw a naked kid walking at night on a long stretch of empty stretch of highway 41 south of where it meets highway 285, in New Mexico.
He picked the kid up and called it in to local law enforcement. The kid wouldn't speak. A State trooper showed up, and according to my friend, acted like it was no big deal, like he had seen it all before. My friend asked the officer to hold up, and what was going on. The officer said, "don't worry about it", and just turned and walked away, loading the kid into his vehicle.
He tried to find a newspaper articles about it in papers from nearby cities but never found any anything. He looked and couldn't find anything in any missing persons filings.
He told this story with a haunting simplicity and air of dread.
G'day Mate...
A friend who is a truck driver told me this one. He was driving through the edge of some bushland on his way back to Perth, Western Australia when he hit a kangaroo. He stopped the truck, grabbed his knife (in case he needed to dispatch it), his flashlight, and got out. He went over to the kangaroo. It needed to be dispatched, as it was alive and in immense pain, but he got this weird feeling that he was being watched.
He flashed his light around and saw dozens of pairs of red eyes watching him. The whole mob of kangaroos was just standing there watching him kill one of their mates (kangaroos have red eyeshine). He quickly dispatched the kangaroo, bolted back to his truck, and took off. He said it was the creepiest thing he had ever seen on the road.
Send In The Clowns
In the 90s, I lived in a logging camp in northern British Columbia. It was a big one made up of trailers and had about 300 people living there including families.
I drove a water truck on weekends when the camp was on days off. When driving on logging roads you radio your kilometer markings with the name of the road to avoid collisions. "Empty on Windfall 10" to say you were 10 clicks on the Windfall road heading away from camp and "Loaded on Windfall 10" to say you were coming back.
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Anyways, being a weekend I didn't expect anyone to be hanging around except a skeleton crew. I had no idea that there was a kids birthday party up on the top end of the windfall road. Its beautiful up there with a clear landing and a pond, so why not. The family hired two clowns from a nearby town for the kids. Apparently the clowns wrapped up their show and were heading back to camp but they were not using the radio.
I'm on the road in a big water truck doing 50 kh and they come bombing around a corner doing 50 kh in a clown car and we almost collide. I blasted the horn as this car with a plastic star on its roof goes whipping by with two screaming clowns inside and I could just not figure out what had just happened.
A Different Kind Of Haunting
It was the night before Thanksgiving a few years ago. A woman was crossing a busy highway and got hit by a car. Police were there but paramedics had not made it yet. The sight of her family holding her lifeless body with blood everywhere while cry hysterically is something I will not forget.
What Were The Drunk Stories?
Where do you want me to start! I'll stick with a story from when I was straight and sober...
Coming back from Kununurra (very northern town in Western Australia) to Perth one night. Seen no one else on the road for hours, but every now and then, on a long straight, I could see a set of tail lights in the distance. All of a sudden, there's the tail lights, attached to a trailer that's stopped dead in the middle of the road. I slammed on the brakes and swerved around it, and that's when i realised that the truck, towing 3 trailers had run off the road into the only large tree for miles. If not for how this ended, I'd laugh my arse off at the irony.
I pulled forwards, off the road, and jumped out. My co-driver (who'd been asleep, but got thrown out of the bunk when I slammed on the brakes) was already calling emergency services. As I got to the back of my 3rd trailer, wisps of smoke started from under the cab of the Volvo wrapped around the tree. I raced back, grabbed a fire extinguisher and was running towards the wreck when I heard a groan from the ditch, about 10 metres in front of the wreck. The driver had been thrown clean through the windscreen, and while he was an absolute mess, at least he was alive. The Volvo was, by now, in flames. But that just gave me some light to inspect old mate for injuries.
And then I heard the sound that, even now, tears me to the core. A thin, high pitched squeal, gradually progressing into the most soul piercing scream I've ever heard. His co-driver had also been asleep in the bunk. And with the truck wrapped around the tree, he was stuck. And I hadn't thought to fight the fire. And now some poor man was burning to death, trapped in a steel coffin, while I just collapsed. Impotent and broken.
I still drive trucks now. It's my life. It's cost me several relationships and a marriage, but I don't know anything else that I can do. I love the life, I love the freedom, and I always know that I can lose everything in the blink of an eye. But I never again, and never will, drive as a two-up team. I could never live with killing a workmate because I f-cked up.
Being out on the road can expose you to a lot of things.
Truckers have probably seen it all.
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When we're intoxicated, or even the slightest bit tipsy from having a little too much to drink, our immediate perspective on things is hazy.
But there's nothing like a bit of alarming news or a jarring incident to snap us out of the fog and focus on the moment.
Sometimes alcohol isn't always to blame for our impairment.
It can be a state of mind, like a perpetual numbness from being complacent in life, and all it takes is one shocking moment to rattle us back to our senses.
Curious to hear from strangers online about this type of scenario, Redditor Known_Challenge_7150 asked:
"What’s one thing that sobered you up real quick?"
These individuals were witness to shocking events that sobered them up right quick.
Bleeding Out
"Got out of a taxi and found a naked man profusely bleeding from his head crawling up the driveway in my condo. Called him an ambulance completely forgot I was absolutely wasted until 45 minutes later when I'd helped him translate and in to an amublance and stepped in my front door."
"Later a few days later learned he'd slipped in the tub and literally crawled out for help. Poor dude. He was fine but I genuinely thought he was going to die there."
– DongLaiCha
Tragic News
"At a bachelor party and we got a phone call that the groom’s father had suddenly passed."
– accountnameredacted
Bottom Of The Barrel
"I went to visit my parents back in July. I was homeless and deep into fentanyl addiction so I lost a lot of weight. My folks could see it. They knew something was up. Anyway, I spent the night and I was getting ready to leave in the morning and I looked at myself in the mirror for a good long time. I finally had enough and told them everything. They took me to detox, from there I went to rehab. Graduated in August and been living with them ever since then. I have 160 days clean and sober."
– Crotch-Monster
A reality check can be enough for some people to snap out of it.
Like Father, Like Son
"Was driving a drunk friend home, he had been on a bender again and was smart enough to call me for a lift rather than try and drive. As I helped in to his house his mother came down the stairs and said 'your as drunk as your father' and went back upstairs. I haven't seen him drunk since then, he still drinks but the thought of turning into his dad scared him out of hard drinking."
– psycospaz
Busted
"Flashing blue lights."
– FiddleOfGold
"This sobered me up just thinking about it."
– redmaple_syrup
Losing Sight
"Woke up to no sight in one eye. I had cataract surgery so just thought one of the lenses had slipped and it was an easy fix. Eye doc says nope, you had a stroke. I loved soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and salty food, which caused high blood pressure, which caused retina damage. Over six months was able to get most of my eyesight back with medication, and all back within a year. Trying to navigate life with one eye was very sobering. Started taking HBP much more seriously."
– MissHibernia
Quitting The Bottle
"Looked up someone I went to highschool with who was an awesome guy. Found out he had been dead for 3 years from alcoholism, at age 33. I made an overnight change. I hadn't started drinking that night yet, 10 months ago. Haven't touched it again since."
– omgtater
These disturbing moments were enough for Redditors to immediately come to their senses.
Unplanned House Guests
"Me and a buddy Woke up in someone’s living room, realized neither one of us knew the people, they were just nice and let 2 drunk guys sleep on their living room floor. We didn’t even say goodbye."
– Oneinsevenbillion75
Serious Health Warning
"Elevated liver enzymes."
"And the knowledge that this sh** was gonna kill me and I just couldn't orphan my family over it."
"So I opted for recovery, instead."
"Clean and sober since June 5, 2009."
– Far_Meal8674
The Joyride
"Grew up in a rural area. The little town hosted dances at the hockey arena, everyone (adults and kids) went and they overserved everyone, regardless of age. I was maybe 16 or 17 and was absolutely sh*tfaced, and jumped in the back of someone's truck with about 8 other people to go back to someone's cottage for after dance drinking. The driver (still don't know who it was) started racing one of his buddies and we whipped around small dirt roads, flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road, going god knows how fast. It was basically a disaster waiting to happen. It was crazy scary and I was sober and thankful to be alive when we finally arrived."
– foxfood9116
The human psyche is a fascinating thing, isn't it?
How we can automatically focus on something urgent at a crucial time, even after getting buzzed from drinking too much alcohol.
But as we're in the thick of the holidays, it's a good reminder to drink responsibly and stay off the roads if you drive to your celebratory destination.
Cheers. Stay safe. And happy holidays.
We've all complained or vented about something in our lives which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't exactly a problem, or is very easily solved.
Then there are those who complain about things that others almost hope will happen to them at some point in their lives.
These are known as "first world problems", as they are problems that pretty much only the world's one percent faces.
From having to fly business class instead of first class, or being served Roederer instead of Dom Pérignon, these complaints are often met with amusement, bewilderment, or even anger.
Redditor jennimackenzie was curious to hear the most absurd "first world problems" anyone ever complained about, leading them to ask:
"What’s the most ridiculous 'first world problem' you’ve seen people get worked up over?"
"Tale As Old As Time..."
"I once knew a mom who was legitimately devastated, to the point of tears/grief, because a doctor predicted her 8 year old daughter's final height to be around 5'2","
"Which wasn't tall enough to get cast as Belle at Disney World."
"That was the child's (and her mother's) only dream in life, apparently."
"Didn't appreciate my suggestion that she could be Minnie or Mickey."
"Lol!"
"Only a face character would do!"- TravelLovingMom
"Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World..."
"My boss from about a decade ago was this insanely rich dude who always went to the bank to get fresh and crisp currency."
"He'd call the bank in advance to make sure they had some on hand."
"I think he was a germaphobe."
"He had a trash can that he'd throw $1 and $5 bills in that he thought was 'dirty' and regularly just donated it vs spending it."
"I asked him why he did this and he said it was too much trouble and asked if I wanted it."
"I said f*ck yeah dumped it into my bag and when I got home it was close to $400 in singles and fives.
"Another time, he wanted to upgrade all the computers in his studio, so we went to a store and bought 10 PCs."
"They all had $150 mail in rebates and he wasn't bothered to go through the trouble of mailing them in."
"3 weeks later I received $1500 after spending a whole afternoon filling out all those goddamn forms."- azninvasion2000
Money Burn GIF by nog
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Who Wore It Better?
"When I was about 19 years old, I was at my boyfriends family BBQ."
"I was wearing this pretty floral sundress."
"His cousins girlfriend showed up in the same dress and she was SO mad that she went and changed."
"I will never understand being upset when someone is wearing the same thing as you.'
"Did you really think that your shirt you bought off the rack is going to be unique to you?"
"No."- mertsey627
Seeing Red! Or Blue In This Case...
"The blue of the balloons wasn't quite the same as the bridesmaid's sashes."
"Years ago my wife and I attended a wedding."
"It was very low key."
"The dinner was in the dining hall at the university where the couple met, cinder block walls and all."
"It was a Baptist wedding - no booze and very serious."
"The dark blue balloons attempting to liven up the hall were a slightly darker shade of blue than the sashes on the bridesmaid's dresses."
"The bride lost here sh*t and absolutely raved for nearly an hour."
"I can't remember how they finally managed to talk her down."- mechant_papa
south park wedding GIF
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See You In Court!
"Rich neighbors who end up in expensive court battles because they disagree about where a tree can be planted or whether the color of a fence fits in with the street’s 'amenity'."
'These disputes get really heated and rack up huge lawyers’ bills."
"The most pathetic part is after the judgement when they are arguing about who should pay the other party’s costs."
"Lots of affidavits filed citing the 'emotional distress' they had to endure, or painting themselves as brave warriors who were forced to take a stand to fight for 'justice'."
"Also lots of pompous litigants insisting that the judge refer to them by their 'Dr' title."
"An absolutely insane dumpster fire of entitled rich people problems."- ElectrocRaisin
It's Always People With Money Who Don't Want To Pay!
"I work in a public library."
"People will get so so mad if they have to be put on a wait list for a book."
"A popular book that just came out."
"Ok our services are not only free but so are the books."
"You’re welcome, a**holes."- Switchbladekitten
A Warm Butt Is A Happy Butt!
"My own."
"We have a bidet toilet seat (Fabulous! Everyone should have one!) and not only does it wash your bum and blow dry it, but the seat's heated!"
"It's shocking how much a heated toilet seat makes the whole process more agreeable."
"Except: We had a power outage and I went to use the toilet and the seat was cold!"
"Unacceptable!"
"This shall not stand!"
"I was really upset because it didn't feel good."
"Then I stopped and thought: This is the most first-world problem anyone's ever had."
"I was really pissed because my heiny was tepid."
"I got over it."- DeathGrover
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Holy Matrimony!
"Weddings are a gold mine for this question."
"People get so hyped up over their 'most important day of their life'."
"They'll destroy friendships, go into debt, and have crazy expectations."
"It's not always the couple who go crazy, either."
"Sometimes, it's the parents or another family member who feels entitled to control the wedding."
"It's just a party."
"Be considerate of guests, have plenty of food and drinks, and enjoy it."- magicrowantree
When Fast Food Isn't Fast Enough...
"Having to pull off to the side to wait for a drive-thru order to be brought out to you because your food isn't ready and there's a line building up behind you."- demanbmore
In Case You Don't Think Customer Service Employees Are Undervalued...
"I was working the return desk at a Target next to a military base so I have so many stories."
"One of my favorites was a lady who had her baby shower before revealing the gender and was livid that she had received floral newborn diapers when she’s having a boy."
"It was a huge box of super expensive, all organic diapers, that we didn’t carry and therefore could not return."
"I cannot accurately express her fury and disgust."
"How dare either suggest her boy could wear feminine diapers."
"I suggested she donate them if she didn’t want to use them and she instead threw away the entire box."
"When she left we pulled it out and threw it in our donate bin."
"There have also been multiple times where mom’s order massive toys and when we bring them out to the car they get furious that they aren’t wrapped."
"We don’t offer wrapping services."
"Here’s the thing, if you don’t want your kids to see the toys you got them for Christmas or their bit to day DON'T BRING THE CHILD WHEN YOU PICK IT UP."
'I’ve had multiple women scream and curse me out that I had ruined their kids Christmas by bringing the toys they ordered out to the car like they requested."- clever-mermaid-mae
Customer Service Waiting GIF by Juno Calypso
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Happiest Place On Earth!
"I used to work for Disney."
"That in itself should tell you everything."
"However for fun I'll give you two specific stories one form our tech department and one from my wife who worked bookings."
"I specifically worked for their call center to help with technical issues with magic band and the website."
"Suddenly got worse huh?"
"A right of passage call everyone has at least one story of is the 'Dome call'."
"Basically there is a subset of Disney Guest (TM) that believes if it rains at Walt Disney world there is someone that will push a button to encapsulate the whole of Disney property in a dome to keep out the rain."
"I'm not kidding."
"If this button is not pushed they call our tech department to angrily ask why."
"My wife worked booking."
"Pretty much everything including Bibbidi Bobbidi boutique and Pirate's league."
"These two things did roughly the same thing difference being price and theme."
"BBB was expensive did more and was focused on princesses, pirates league did a bit less and focused on mermaids and pirates."
"Lady called up my wife, and got pissed about BBB being booked up (It goes FAAAAST)."
"Karen: 'Im going to give the phone to my daughter and I want you to tell her how you are ruining her vacation by not letting her do BBB'."
"Wife proceeds to explain how pirate's league is so much cooler and how she can be a mermaid or pirate and basically gets the kid to start demanding to their parents about how they want to be a mermaid instead of a princess."- trollsong
Disney World GIF
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The horror!
Being booked into a junior suite at Disney World instead of an executive suite!
It's almost as bad as having no money for groceries, or no food to feed you children...
Said absolutely no one.