My Non Accident

Today's Thoughts 1/10/12 My Non Accident

Back years ago, after coming home from the principal's office once again, I overheard heard my mom saying to a friend one day, "You can take the boy out of New York, but you can't take the New York out of the boy." Yup that’s was me in a nut shell. I was born just about forty miles north of New York City and even though I moved south to Georgia at an early age, I still have a bit of New York in me. I guess I proved that earlier today after some driver decided he wanted to pretend that I hit his truck where he had parked it in the middle of the driveway.

Everyone knows these drivers. A half empty parking lot and the only place they can find to park is where you have to squeeze within inches of their truck to get in or out of the truck stop. I mean at two in the morning when there is no place to park I can understand, but three in the afternoon with about twenty trucks occupying about a hundred spots, that is just lazy to me.

I had pulled in and took a quick thirty-minute nap after I had started feeling a little on the drowsy side, and was just starting to pull out of my parking spot when today's friend pulled up on the right side of the two truck wide exit and parked his truck. So with a dropped trailer to my left, I had to swing wide to the left to get around the left side of his truck so I could leave. Well with the barrier wall being on the left side of the driveway and his truck on the right side, I ended up not quite making it and had to back up my truck so I could get another swing at it. Long about this time he is getting out of his truck and I happen to mention to him in my friendliest voice what a lazy SOB he was for parking in the middle of the driveway of a half empty parking lot. Would you believe that this made him mad? Go figure.

Anyway, I guess to get even with me, he whips out pen and paper and starts writing down the all the company info on my truck and I ask him why it is that he is doing all that for and he tells me that I just hit his truck. "Hit Your Truck," I say "You're crazy," I told him and then I told him that he was just mad because I called him a lazy SOB for parking in the middle of the driveway. And then folks, it was on.

I come out of my truck with my camera in hand and I start snapping pictures. I have been at this since nineteen eighty and I know how to cover my butt in these types of situations. But I'm mad now and I'm starting to yell as loud as I can yell. "You are just mad because I called you a lazy SOB and you think you are going to make me pay for it." I'm walking back and forth taking picture after picture and I asked him, "If I hit your truck, where are the marks?" There were none, I had just come down out of the North West and I am covered in sand and salt and not a bit of it was disturbed. I am looking at his trailer and not a fresh scratch on it. Still yelling, I want to know where I hit him. But he cannot answer. He just keeps coming back to me, "you hit my truck and that’s an accident" So I say, "Let's call the law" And I did.

Well, I am going off on this character as if I just left New York City yesterday and all the other drivers are just standing around laughing their butts off because my friend as hard as he is trying, cannot find even a single itty-bitty tiny ding anywhere on his truck. And of course I called his bluff and I am now talking to 911. I guess he got a little scared about this time because he decided he needed to call his company and report what was going on. Of course, me not being one to let a good opportunity go to waste, I decided to yell even louder and explain some things to his safety guy from ten feet away over the phone. I again went over what a lazy SOB his driver was for parking in the middle of the driveway of a half empty parking lot and then turning in a false accident report because he got mad when someone called him a lazy SOB. I yelled that there were no marks on either truck and if his driver would park where the rest of us drivers parked, we would not even be having this conversation. On and on I went while I waited for the patrol car to pull into the driveway.

Then all of a sudden, my friend jumps up in his truck and shoots out of the driveway. I chase after him for a bit before I stop and find myself jumping up and down waving my arms wildly and shouting after him, "Hey you lazy SOB, we were in an accident, come back here." But he just keeps snatching gears and then he is gone. I turn to walk back to my truck and I realize that I had a small audience standing there laughing at the way I just went off on this clown. Somehow, I do not think my friend knew just whom he was dealing with today. He thought he had some fresh out of school driver but instead ended up with a thirty year veteran that was not about to let some lazy SOB blow smoke up his skirt.

Anyway, it is not long before I have the deputies laughing and they are trying to decide if they need to be looking for a commercial truck driver that left the scene of a non-accident are not. Reports of course I make sure are coming my way, and of course, I called my company to let them know. Then I do as I always do and here is a trick you might want to use. Always use your own camera to take pictures with instead of theirs. This way you can look over what you took and then delete the ones that make you look bad before you forward them to your company. Just a little trick I learned a few years back. Be sure to write everything down while it is still fresh in your memory like I just did and I have even at times drawn out sketches of skid marks and directions of travel. As I said earlier, I have been doing this for a long time. Rule number one is cover your butt in these situations and more often than not, you will come out ok.

Well, this is my non-accident story for this year I hope. One is enough for me. I did have fun with this guy. I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. One thing for sure though, I was wide-awake when I got back out on that highway after all of that. Guessing I need to find an easier way to wake up though.

Be safe peeps …
Jeff Head.
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