You would think, usually, the comradeship between truckers goes someway to pulling them through the long, lonely nights of nothing but empty roads.
The relationships built between drivers on the CB radio as they drive for hours and hours across countries must go someway to providing some sort of relief. Just as bus drivers always wave to one another, long-haul truck drivers are also part of a select few with more than a job title in common.
Then again, we’ve all been on long, late night journeys which seem to go on forever. The kind where, no matter how fast or how far you drive, the road always looks the same, and you have an unbearable sense of never actually going anywhere.
Which, I’m assuming, happened to this driver, whose reckless driving and threats of violence over the radio ended in a bizarre bit of road rage, and the other driver informing the police of his actions.
Check it out:
Filmed in British Columbia, Canada, the driver who caught the footage on his dash cam, said:
I was driving an extended super B which has two trailers and 30 wheels. In all it’s over 100ft long. I had the cruise control set at 95km/h in a 100km/h two-lane highway. I was passed in an intersection by a loaded log truck.
My speed was ranging from 90-97km/h, changing over the slight grade changes, while in cruise. Bad words, reckless driving, threats of violence over the radio with lots of ‘trucker language’.
Still dark just before 6am, in heavy smoke from wildfires nearby and the log driver becomes aggressive after being high beamed.
He aggressively brakes down to 33km/h and for a while, won’t accelerate past 60, then swerves wildly across both lanes before stopping all traffic to kick my truck. Unwarranted road rage at 6am.
After a heated and lengthy exchange between the two drivers, the driver in front slams on the brakes, gets out of his truck and marches towards the other truck.
However, as he approaches the cab, he seems to change his mind, and instead of picking a fight with the other driver, he starts taking out his anger on the truck itself, kicking at the wheels are trying to pull at the front of the engine.
At the end of the video, as both drivers are back behind the wheel, the man behind the camera alerts the police to the reckless actions of the driver in front.
Luckily, it seems there wasn’t any real damage to the trucks, just some bruised egos.
As we all know though, road rage can turn into instant karma pretty quickly.
Like it did for this guy:
It’s unknown what sparked the conflict, but it’s safe to say we know it ended.
As the green pick up truck came up in front of one car and got closer to the silver car, the driver attempted to swerve into it. A downright reckless and dangerous move to say the least.
The attempt obviously backfired – the driver lost control, swerved across the freeway, almost hit another car in the process and slammed hard into a stone barrier.
Road rage is never pretty.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.