Snitch

Today's Thoughts By Jeff Head 4/21/13 Snitch

Is that what I am, a snitch that is? Some might call me that I guess as I was called this today by a trucker as he caught me snapping pictures of him two feet of the tail of a car at highway speeds. After that he went on to call me all sorts of nice things. What amazed me most here is the fact that at those speeds and that close to a car full of people, why was he looking out his passenger window at me instead of keeping an eye on the only part of the car in front of him that he could see, the top of it.

 

As usual when I see this going on, I ask the driver to please back off before he kills someone. Some do and others like today take it to a third grade level.  His choice I think to myself as he tells me his company will not fire him and actually rants off his truck and company phone number for all to hear over the CB radio. Then actually dares me to make the call and laughs as he tells me that I will just get laughed at. Then of course the usual next, I am to mind my own business and to drive my own truck.

 

 You see though, this is my business and yours to as a safe and legal trucker like most of us are in today's world. When things go wrong in this type of situation, the ramifications fall to every trucker in the nation. First, another killer truck story hits the newsstands and then politicians climb up on their stumps and what comes out of all that is the drivers and decent companies left out on the road now have to deal with the new regulations designed to stop killer truckers. Then of course we also have to deal with the loss of respect from those that we share the highway with. Our jobs as safe and legal truckers is to protect the traveling public as we share the highway with them, not shove them down the road for whatever reason. So you see, when one acts in an unprofessional manner, we all pay. Even if it is just at a company level, we all pay.

 

As for me being that snitch, sure, why not. And let's not forget all the threats of kicking my butt and the occasional death threats I receive from time to time. The thing is that I remember a time when I said nothing one day. I watched as an eighteen wheeler pushed a car through a construction zone. To this day I can remember the sights and sounds as the world went wrong and that truck ended up shoving not one, but two cars down that highway. To this day I can see clearly in my mind the smoke and debris and the bodies. And to this day I wake up at night and can still hear the scream of that little girl as she turned and seen what was left of her mother laying there half way under what used to be a minivan now nothing more than a twisted pile of metal residing under the front end of a truck. A driver by the way that now calls prison home.

 

I made a promise that day to that little girl and myself and a promise I plan to keep. That promise being to do just one more thing to help stop the needless deaths out on the highway. Each and every day I spend behind the wheel of my truck I try my best to keep that promise. If that makes me a snitch or something worse, so be it.

 

As for today's episode, well, off the pictures go with a letter to the company. Of course, copies will go to the proper authorities. One to the state the event took place in and a second to the state the trucking company resides in. Sure the company might laugh at me. But thinking about the proper authorities, well, we will see if they do any laughing as they knock on the door and ask what has become of this so called trucker they hired that likes to shove people down the road with a big truck with their name on the side of it. Judging from past experience, any laughing comes to a very quick stop right about here.

 

God Bless America 

 Drive Safe, Drive Sane

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