See? I got your attention. Now you think that I’m about to give my opinion on the trucker convoys in Canada and the U.S. However, that isn’t the focus of my blog. Instead, I’m going to write about a recent experience I had with a trucker on the the Massachusetts Turnpike, otherwise known as I-90, locally known as “the Pike.” From my house due East, the Pike is a dull stretch of seventy miles of highway to Boston, and where bad behavior is at a maximum.
Before I zero in specifically on my good trucker buddy, let me first reiterate a frequent complaint of mine: Some people just lose their cotton picking minds when they get behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. Where does common sense go? I just don’t get it. It certainly seems that all anger, frustration, and power tripping is released on fellow drivers. Stupidity is at an all-time high. Messing with the lives of others becomes some sick game, all in the name of getting one car length ahead of someone else, or in a preferred lane before someone else does.
Okay, now let me tell the story of my favorite trucker in the world.
On Monday, March 14, 2022, I was heading to Boston for my monthly check-in at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Yeah, you got it. I have cancer. I’m being treated for cancer. I’m not going to Beantown to party, or see the Red Sox, or to an art museum Truth is, I’d rather be working than going to Dana Farber Cancer Institute. I’m going because I have to. If I don’t go I’ll die. I’m tired on said day, and it’s early in the morning. I’m minding my own damn business, going 70 miles per hour in the center lane the way I always do. Other drivers fly by me, getting nowhere faster than me. I know that. They apparently don’t.
I pass a trucker going at a reasonable pace, and take note of it, because I like to see truckers who don’t think they own the road, who don’t think that just because they’re bigger they’re better. This 18-wheeler, from a company that will be named below, was inconspicuous, as all trucks and cars are until they do something off the wall. This one was a few minutes away from doing just that.
Back in the center lane after passing a few vehicles that were going a little slower than me, I settled in. Ten minutes go by, and suddenly Mr. Inconspicuous Trucker is right behind me flashing his lights at me. As a general rule and as a longtime driver with a clean record and hundreds of thousands of miles on all over the United States of America, I don’t allow other drivers, whether they’re bigger than me or not, to decide how fast I go or what lane I drive in. So I don’t budge, which only serves to piss off Mr. Trucker. My line of reasoning is this: There are two more lanes to move into. Use them if you don’t like my driving.
He doesn’t see things my way.
His next move is to start tooting at me and swerving. Then, the worst thing of all: Tailgating. In a tractor trailer truck that can’t stop quickly should I need to put on my brakes for something. But I held my ground, and so did he. I took out my phone and made a video going over my shoulder, showing the lights of this shithead glaring in my rear window, as well as how close he really was to me. Close enough for someone to reach out my back window and touch him.
I get it, you’re saying, just move for him! It’s your own fault for not moving! Here’s where we’re different. It’s against my principles to cater to a moron like this, particularly when I’m not doing anything wrong. And here’s the funny thing: He finally passed me, and then we got tangled up in stop and go traffic. So I had plenty of opportunities to take pictures of the company name and license plates, and Mr. Trucker got nowhere from his dangerous behavior. Just for good measure, he indulged in the ultimate in blameless behavior, and hung his phone out the window to take pictures of me. Imagine!
I eventually lost him, went to Dana Farber, and got all good news. But this experience sat heavily on my mind and still does.
Did I call Goulet Trucking in South Hadley, Massachusetts? Yes, after I read some pretty nasty reviews that indicate that this is a company that really doesn’t care what their truckers are doing. Daryl, the fellow I spoke to, didn’t seem too interested in me, but I asked him to tell my trucker friend some of the items I’ve already expressed above: I was going to Dana Farber. I have cancer. I was going for treatment. If I don’t go I’ll die. This already sucks enough. Why did he have to make the experience even suckier?
You never know who you’re messing with, what they’re dealing with, and how you’re making them feel.
I did the only thing I could. But I know that it won’t do a lick of good. Mr. Trucker will go out and terrorize someone else. Then someone else after that.
This experience brings up a point that surfaces more and more often now: When we’re blatantly mistreated, who can we really turn to if a clear crime has not been committed?
And the bigger question: Can we all just act like decent human beings instead of total brainless careless asshats?
I Am Barb Lee 