How I Almost Got Rear Ended By A Tractor Trailer Truck On My Travels

Above are the trailer brake skid marks from a tractor trailer slamming in his brakes to avoid hitting me as I turned left about where that camper is ahead.  

There are circumstances that I would like to point out for background.

- There is a hill with no visibility of the road ahead until you crest it so the TT didn’t have too much time to react once he saw me stopped to turn.

- My directional was on to indicate I was planning a left turn before I crested the hill.

- I have a light bar above my bumper with LED brake and directional indicators in addition to my truck lights

- It my opinion that the TT may have been going a bit over the 55 MPH speed limit

- There are no signs indicating an intersection ahead.

- There was a Vandwelling friend following behind the TT that saw this all happen.  

- I knew there was a TT following me so I gave early notice of my intention to turn.  

- There was an oncoming car that I had to wait for before I could turn left so I needed to totally stop.

- I didn’t know I was about to get hit until I looked back in my side view drivers mirror and saw the smoke coming from the tires of the trailer.  I then drove forward to give more room.

Above is the dirt road intersection.

- I was traveling west on CA 62 (bottom right to upper left)

- There is a green pin drop on the map above I use to mark a turn off the highway on unnamed roads such as this BLM Road.  I do this to ensure I know in advance from Google voice map directions when I’m going to need to turn.  I use this feature just for this reason and experience getting off roads out here like this.

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What did I learn to better prevent this in the future?

- I may need different auxiliary brake and turn signals to capture the attention of vehicles following me.

- I should plan to pull off to the right if there is an oncoming vehicle and then drive straight across the road vs stopping in the road to wait to turn.

- I think I was lucky to have not men hit.

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I offer this blog for all Vandwellers that use these unmarked roads off highways without turn lanes.  There is a risk of distracted driving and a greater risk that we can get hit in these circumstances.

My Vandwelling friend that was following the tractor trailer saw all this happen and was significantly shaken and thought I was going to get hit as she could not see me as the TT was in the way.

Safe travels folks.  It can be dangerous out there.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com