I was driving my usual linehaul route from Charlotte to Ellenwood. It was just another day on the road, cruising down the interstate with the steady hum of my 505 as my only companion. The weather was clear, but the traffic was heavy. It got more tightly packed with every mile, filled with the usual mix of commuters, shoppers, and truckers like myself.
I take pride in my safe and professional driving. I’ve encountered my fair share of aggressive drivers, but this day would be a very different, different story. I first spotted him in my rearview mirrors—a semi-truck with a flatbed, darting through the lanes as if he owned the road. That familiar surge of adrenaline, the one that comes when you sense a fight setting up, flooded my veins. I watched in red alert as the ticking time bomb rapidly approached from behind.
He closed in the lane to the left of me, tailgating the car in front of him. There was no space for him to overtake, but that didn’t seem to deter him. In a reckless, split-second decision, he veered into my lane, threading the needle between my truck and the car ahead with mere inches to spare. I hung on the horn. My heart raced as I slammed on the brakes and swerved into the right lane, narrowly avoiding a collision.
The guy ahead of me was going 65 in a 70 zone, and the flatbed driver wasn’t satisfied. The car in front of him was moving too slowly for his liking, and he was impatient. He cut me off again in a split second; this time, there was no threading the needle; he was pulling that flatbed straight into my tractor's corner. In an instant, I was out of the travel lane into the breakdown lane, shoveling a 10-foot rig into an 8-foot space. My tires ground on the gravel shoulder as I tensed to maintain control. I could see the panic in the eyes of the drivers around us, everyone trying to avoid the chaos he was creating.
I decided to have Siri call it in. I reported the aggressive driver to the hy-po. It’s a deadly game we play on the road, and this guy was a ticking time bomb. I described his truck and location, hoping they’d catch him before he caused an accident.
Twenty minutes later, I saw the flashing lights of a patrol car ahead and him in the breakdown lane along with two other cars. They caught up to the flatbed driver, rolling up on him on the side of the road after he side-swiped those cars. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, grateful that the immediate danger had passed.
As nearly always since then...
I’ve stayed vigilant, knowing that any day could bring another encounter with reckless drivers. It’s a constant threat. It's simply a matter of time. But I also felt a sense of relief, knowing I did the right thing by reporting him. The road can be unpredictable, and chaos is a moment away.
I went online the next day to check how my ever-present nanny cam scored the incident. Zero, no score. It was as if it had never happened. I guess it was too close for the radar and camera to understand what was unfolding in front of it. I'm okay with that. It saved me time from reliving it by explaining it all over again to a non-driver. In fact, haven't spoke about again till now. Blog therapy I guess.