Friday, January 27, 2006

Trucker Terrorism

One form of trucker terrorism I detest occurs on any interstate. You're cruising along, minding your business, and look in your rear view mirror. All you can see is the radiator of Mack truck about 3 feet behind your rear bumper. That's a 70,000 pound juggarnaut who can crush you like a tin can if you have to stop suddenly.

I have a great fantasy about this situation. I want to be cruising down the interstate, in the back seat of a convertable, with the top down. When a truck parks on my rear bumper, I will give him one signal to back off. When he doesn't, then I want to pick up a very large pistol, a 357 or 44 magnum, silver plated of course. In clear sight of the truck driver, I want to load that pistol, and then slowly and deliberately shoot a large hole in his radiator. I doubt the troopers would approve of this solution to the problem.

There are other alternatives.
When I was in my teens, several of my friends developed a type of flame thrower for their cars. The would replace the exhaust pipe with a length of cast iron pipe, drilled and tapped to mount a spark plug at the rear end, wired to a switch on the dash. When cruising down the road, they would turn the ignition off for a couple of seconds, which would allow gas to accumulate in the exhaust pipe. Hit the switch and BLAM! a sheet of flame would shoot out about 15 feet behind the car. This was most effective at night. The game was to pass a car, get about 30 feet ahead, and then fire the flame thrower. I don't know if this would work on modern cars with catalytic converters, but I have encountered several truckers I would love to try it on. The troopers probably wouldn't approve of this either.

A third alternative would be a small smoke generator mounter on the rear bumper. Blind the SOB the next time he parks on your rear bumper.

Take back the interstate highways. They have been captured by the trucks, but we outnumber them!

1 comment:

Bobby Coggins said...

I carry a digital camera with me at all times.

All you have to do is take the camera and point it at the truck (while you are still driving!), and looking forward, you snap a few pictures. This works best in daylight, although at night the flash of the camera causes them to back off.
When the truck comes around you, let the driver see you taking pictures of his/her truck. Since most of them have I.D. numbering and "am I driving safe?" phone numbers...this gives them food for thought.
I have used photos of trucks to call in and report these terrorists...and offered photos and/or short videos of the truck in question to send by email. None have ever taken me up on it.
Just someting you might consider.