Being on the road is never easy because you have to be cautious around yourself and ensure your safety as well as that of others. However, there are instances when drivers encounter the creepiest and most strange things on the road.
These people from the Reddit community shared their stories that they can never forget and will give them mixed emotions until eternity. You might want to check them out!
1. Goose-Bumps
I pulled into a Perdue plant and dropped my empty trailer into a go-park, where they allow bobtails to sit, right next to a nice little pond. My pick-up was in 12 hours, so I did my PTI and lay down in the bunk.
At about 3 a.m., I heard something tapping on my passenger side door. I got up and looked out the window, expecting to see someone, maybe a driver, asking for a lumper check, but no one was there. Maybe I was hearing things, so I went back to lie down.
As soon as my head hits the pillow, I hear the tapping again, except it's on my driver's side this time. It's the same thing as before. I jump up and look out my window, but nothing's there. I double-lock my doors just in case and open my side hatches to hear what's going on outside.
After about 15 minutes, I hear a very light splat splat splat going along the driver's side of the truck. I slowly get up, planning to look out my window at the exact moment whoever is knocking on my door. Then I hear a thud coming from the roof of the cab.
I stop, grab my tire, jump off its hook, and prepare myself for whatever is happening. Then a freaking goose falls off the top of the truck and lands on my hood. It stands up, waddles back and forth, and looks at me.
As we made eye contact, the tapping at my door started again. I say freak it and throw open the driver-side door, and another damn goose is waddling away with all the speed it can manage, honking like a five-year-old who just found the horn on his new bike.
The pond I parked next to had a ton of them just wandering around. Needless to say, It was hard to sleep that night because every couple minutes, the damn geese would peck at my door or land on the cab and waddle around.
Amnial556
2. Hello Captain
Trucker here. I think the best "creepy" thing that ever happened to me was when I was heading from Tucson, AZ, up to Salt Lake City, UT.
Well, this was a few years ago, and the main highway had been taken out in a flash flood and was under construction, so I had to take a weird detour through the mountains in lower Utah.
Well, it was getting late, and I was getting tired, so I pulled off onto the shoulder and went to sleep in my bunk. This was in the middle of nowhere; the closest town was about 40 miles away, so once I turned the lights off, it was completely pitch black outside.
Anyway, around 4 a.m., I woke up because I heard something messing with my truck, like playing with the air and power cables between my cab and the trailer, which is literally 6 inches from where my head is but on the outside of the cab.
Then I felt something climb onto the landing on the back of my truck, and it shook my whole truck. I'm guessing something around two to three hundred pounds was climbing around back there. I'm thinking like a mountain lion or a bear.
At this point, I'm wide awake and want to get this thing away from me, so I slam my hand into my cab wall, trying to scare whatever is out there. SLAM: Hard enough to really make it loud. I Then hear someone, a male, scream bloody murder, and I hear them fall off the back of my truck.
I then hear about 15 other people all around my truck yelling. I climb up front, turn on my lights, and illuminate a squad of Army Reserves doing their midnight ruck march and capture drills. It turns out these guys were supposed to find an "abandoned" truck and "secure" it for their midnight drills.
That truck was 3 miles back down the road. They did not expect me to sleep there and thought I was part of the drill. I'm ex-military, so after explaining I was not part of their test and legit was just there out of coincidence, we laughed it off.
They had to radio their C.O. and tell him I was there without the other squads bothering me.
Deleted
3. It is Just the Wind
I used to work as a roadtrain driver in the Gascoyne region of Outback Western Australia. On the night shift, I experienced a lot of black dog phenomena. I would see all kinds of things appear in the shadows because of fatigue, or three goats would change into a beast.
One time, I swear I nearly ran over a Corgi, which would be astronomical odds that there is one in the wild in this outback. One night, I pulled up to sleep, let the engine run cold for ten minutes, and then tried to sleep.
I woke up to noises, not voices but some sort of order to the noises, and the whole truck cab was shaking. I looked in the mirror and saw shadows around the vehicle. I turned the truck on, and every single light was attached to the thing. I hastily continued my run to the port.
This is a big cab that would have taken a lot to move. I rationalize it as being windy, having some goats around the truck, and fatigue. Either way scared the hell out of me, and I never slept on the night shift again.
Skatemacka02
4. Right Move
I used to deliver hotshot freight across the Great Plains/Minnesota area. One night, around 2 a.m., I was hauling across North Dakota, trying to reach Montana by morning.
I was delivering a particularly valuable tractor part that a farm desperately needed for the following day.
I began to notice some highway hypnosis sneaking up on me, but it didn't really bother me because I'd been through it hundreds of times before. Anyone who has driven across North Dakota knows that it is incredibly flat. Like, really flat.
There also tend to be very straight and long roads. It's somewhat easy to see things on the road that are far away, even at night.
I noticed something long on the road, spanning my entire lane, approximately half a mile before me.
I slowed down and prepared to move into the opposite lane, thinking it was some retread off a blown tire. As I approached, I noticed two people lying head-to-toe across the road. I swerved into the other lane, successfully avoiding them, and came to an almost complete stop.
But they didn't move. Not an inch. I was just about to back up and check on them when I remembered an old Greybeard colleague's story.
He told me that in some remote regions, people will lie in the middle of the road and wait for a car or truck to stop and see what's happening.
At that point, the road-layers, along with whoever else is hiding in the nearby bushes, will beat the crap out of the driver and steal his vehicle, leaving him in the middle of nowhere.
I decided not to back up, and when the two people on the road saw me put my truck back in gear and drive away, they both got up and walked toward the shoulder.
I called the police and explained what happened, but we were so far from civilization that I doubt anything came of it. Thanks to that old greybeard, I got to keep my truck, job, and teeth.
ArronRodgersButthole
5. Consider the Bottle
I parked off an exit ramp at about 3 a.m. for 10 hours. The moon was full and high, and I Spotted an unmistakably human figure in a nearby cut cornfield. It was a little spooky, but I just wrote it off as an old timer putting up a scarecrow for the grandkids.
I started watching a few YouTube videos before turning in and out of the corner of my vision. I thought I saw movement. I shut my lights off to get a good look.
I saw the figure but nothing else. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like maybe it was in a different spot—maybe a little closer, even.
I was definitely feeling a bit spooked. The highway was devoid of anyone besides a car passing every ten minutes. I didn’t want to, but I had to jump out to pee. I considered a bottle, but I told myself I was being childish. I looked at the figure, and it was right where I figured it should be.
I hopped out, walked between my truck and trailer, and started leaking. Every fiber of my being wanted to look. I told myself I was being foolish again, but couldn’t help it. I looked out; the field was empty, and the figure wasn’t there.
My stomach dropped. I pinched off and jumped back in. I took off down the highway and didn’t care about a violation. I stopped 40 minutes up the road at a well-lit spot.
I haven’t stopped on a ramp since.
Acanno10
6. The Four Elements
Driving through rural NM, a bisti area with a crazy melted rock look, there are no plants or anything, just rock and sand. It's monsoon time, and it's raining cats and dogs, just pouring so hard you could barely see going 20mph.
Thunder and lightning just rocked the car, sometimes turning into hail and pounding you. It was just a nasty storm. I came around a corner, and the whole countryside was legit on fire. Like 20-foot-tall flames, hundreds of yards in all directions, while pouring rain at dusk.
It was just rocks and dirt wildly on fire in the pouring rain. I slowly drove on; it was totally freaky and surreal. Honestly, I thought I may have hallucinated it.
Checking the news, a propane truck slid off the road going way too fast and apparently busted open pretty violently and lit on fire. I never saw the truck; it must have been behind something. Felt a bit bad after about not stopping
Deleted
7. Passenger Ghost
My dad drove a truck between Edinburgh and London and tells this story often. He was driving down the motorway and, looking to his right, saw a woman with a ‘Miss Trunchbull bun’ (as he describes it) staring at him with a terrified expression from a car next to him.
Before he knows how to react, the car pulls off at the next exit, and my dad, although shaken, carries on. About half an hour later, a different vehicle with a different driver pulled alongside my dad, with the same woman in the passenger seat with the same expression.
My dad thinks, ‘Freak this’ and plans to pull into the next service to report it, as even if it’s nothing/misunderstanding, it's better to be safe than sorry, right?
Anyway, the car disappears before he can get any details (plates, etc.), and he thinks there is no point in calling the police with no details, so he carries on driving.
Literally about four hours later, almost in London, yet another car pulls alongside him with the same woman, the same Miss Trunchbull hair, the same terrified expression, except this time she appears to be screaming at my dad through the window, so my dad pulls over into a layby and calls the police.
Apparently, they have received three other calls about the same woman/car in the same area in the last few minutes. Unfortunately, this is anticlimactic, as he never heard anything more about it.
He didn’t see her again, and although he kept an eye on the news, he didn’t see anything about it. Hopefully, it’s just a giant coincidence. Who knows?
ScrewLucy
8. Extra Time for What
One weird story back when I was in high school. It was summer and my dad's birthday, so we drove to a casino 2 hours away to watch a boxing match with my uncle. It finishes, and we will drive back the same night.
We're nearing a canyon with no phone reception, so we call my mom and tell her we'll be home soon (the canyon usually takes about 30 minutes with no traffic). It's around midnight. So we enter the canyon, and we're all pretty tired.
To keep us talking, we start telling stories, mostly creepy. This continues for a while, and it feels like time passes in a haze. We pass this butte in the canyon, and suddenly, I get deja vu.
I'm convinced we've already passed that. All of us have driven this canyon a hundred times and know the layout. We keep talking, and then we pass the same butte again. I point it out this time, and my dad and uncle notice the time—it's 1 AM, and we're still not home.
So we all start to get a bit freaked out. We stop talking and just watch the road slowly pass by. Now that we're paying attention, time seems to catch up.
We exited the canyon around 1:15 AM and called my mom, who was freaked out because she hadn't heard from us. To this day, we still have no idea where that extra 45 minutes or so went.
2rio2
9. Tourist Spot
I have one weird story from when I was a kid. My parents always took us on long road trips every summer, and my dad liked to take meandering routes through rural towns to see all the tourist traps.
On one trip, we passed through a little town in Illinois, the kind you miss if you sneeze. This one had mannequins. Every house and business was only populated by mannequins. I don’t remember seeing any people.
Everything looked maintained and clean, so someone was at least caring for the place. There weren’t any signs or anything indicating it was for tourists. Just a convenience store/bait shop with a sign reading “Eat here. Get worms”
OMGSpaghettiisawesom
10. Just a Raccoons
I was driving through eastern Washington on some state roads. There were no rest stops or cities, but I had done the route enough to know there were these massive dirt areas every ~40 miles where you could park safely away from the road.
I decided to call it a night, closed my blinds, and lay down to watch something on my phone.
After roughly an hour, I heard someone trying to open the driver's side door. I hadn't heard any vehicles on the road the whole time I'd been parked, but I got up to peek out the curtains.
As I looked out into the blackness of the driver's side window, I heard them try to open the passenger side door. I peeked down from the top of the curtain but couldn't see anything, so I started the truck and kicked on the lights.
I'm fairly freaked out at this point, so I'm still not opening the curtains but peeking through the gaps. Nobody is standing near either of my doors or parked within sight line.
I take a deep breath and close the sleeper curtains, too, because, for some reason, that will make things better, right?
After lying back down and convincing myself that something blew against the truck and that it only sounded like the doors (it was fairly windy outside, and there was a lot of flat ground), I heard what sounded like someone trying to pry open the vents on the sleeper.
The door handles start clicking again, and the truck starts shifting like someone is climbing on it. I hit the little alarm button in the sleeper, hoping to spook them off.
Still, it does nothing but add to the noise of door handles, fingers tapping on windows and chassis, and the hiss of air coming out of the suspension.
Then, suddenly, it stops. A few moments where I can only hear myself breathing and my heart pounding before I hear another truck approach and then drive by.
I spent the next few hours waiting for whatever it was to come back, but it never did. In the morning, I couldn't find any footprints or damage to my truck, but on every window were tiny human-looking handprints, like a toddler had licked their hand and stuck it to my window over and over.
ICollectTheDead
11. The Guide
Driving through a national park in the middle of the night, going through a slow stretch at about 30 km/h. Every so often, I think I see something out the window and beside me.
There was just a glimpse of movement. When I looked, though, I didn't catch it.
Finally, about the third time, I whipped my head around, and this time, I recognized it.
A huge black wolf followed alongside my truck just off the highway. I only saw it briefly before I had to focus back on the road, but it was lovely yet unsettling.
skilganon
12. Guardian Angel
My father was a truck driver who was hauling tomatoes through a smaller town in northern California when he suddenly got incredibly tired.
He wasn’t low on sleep or deprived at all, but he ended up passing out at the wheel. The last thing he saw was the light of the town in front of him.
He woke up about 2 hours later on the other side of town, perfectly parked on the side of the road. He swears something was looking out for him that night.
Tonninc
13. Day Dreamer
I used to work some overnight shifts sometimes when I was working as a switchman for a class 1 railroad. One morning after a particularly long shift, I swear I pulled over to get a quick nap in a parking lot.
I woke up in my driveway, and the garage door opened, probably two hours before my next projected call time. That's about seven hours of sleep.
I have no clue how I traveled the 30 miles or so to get home and don't/can't recall it. To this day, I'm so thankful that I didn't kill anyone or myself somehow.
Slendyla_IV
14. It Strikes Again
I used to drive trucks in northern Manitoba. A road in the northeast where you can drive for several hours and see very few vehicles. This road is quite flat and straight in stretches. Of course, this is deep in the bush.
One day, I saw something cross the road in the distance. Very large, easily past the hood on my truck. But not long, like a moose or elk. Just tall. It disappeared into the bush, and as I drove by the spot, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Days later, I heard a tow truck driver describe on the radio his encounter with a similar creature, only he was much clearer that he had spotted Bigfoot. This guy went to some length to explain that he didn't want people to think he was crazy, but he was sure of what he saw.
I asked an Aboriginal client of mine in a nearby community, and he said the Elders spoke of them commonly, the same way they spoke of the other animals.
I don't know what I saw that day, but I'm certain it wasn't a bear, moose, deer, or elk. I just don't know what the hell it was.
Thehotbreadguy
15. A Big Setup
My aunt's friend was driving through New England and decided to take a lesser road. It was close to sunset, and he was going through these woods like you would any road.
He comes around a bend in the road and sees a car just stopped in the road, kind of off to the side, with the horn blaring. Someone was passing out on the steering wheel.
He wanted to stop and help, but something just kept tingling up his spine.
He slowed to get next to the car, but something inside him made him book it. In his rearview mirror, he saw a large group of people staring at his car as he drove away, including the guy at the wheel.
Comik300
16. Concerned Citizen
I was in the middle of nowhere in Texas and getting soooo tired. There were absolutely no lights anywhere around me except for the stars.
I guess I kind of messed up a turn at one of those forks in the road when a calm voice came LOUD over the CB: “DRIVER, IT LOOKS LIKE IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO PULL OVER AND GRAB SOME SLEEP!”
So I did. I’m not ignoring Invisible Citizen Band Jesus. I parked the truck, rested, and returned to driving when I woke up.
Winnapig
17. Bear-Glove
A story handed down from my grandfather: in his youth, he was a lumberjack in rural Washington/Oregon, which, according to him, was fairly uneventful save for one incident.
He and three others are driving to their residences late one night(technically morning). He and the other guy in the back seat pass out while the passenger seat keeps up a conversation to ensure the driver stays alert.
Sometimes, at night, he and the other guy are woken up by the car screeching to a halt. The driver and passenger are staring out the window, swearing and pale-faced.
All four get a good, long look at something tall standing in the headlights down the road, black and wide. The driver makes the fastest three-point turn my grandfather has ever seen and takes a different route.
They concluded that this was probably a bear that got spooked by the car and tried to scare it off. Whatever it was, my grandpa proceeded to retell the story when every family got together afterward, so it's pretty burnt into my memory.
[deleted]
18. Mysterious Case
Reno, NV. It's on the north side of town, way off the freeway towards an old "military" road. I arrived early, at about 1 a.m., but they didn't open until 6 a.m.
The facility was closed, so no one was around, so I just pulled into the lot and parked off to the side. I went to sleep and was woken shortly after by someone knocking on the door or window, firmly to the point that the truck shook.
I jump out of bed, thinking they are already there and want to offload me early. When I get to the door, no one is there, so I step down, thinking they are behind the trailer, looking at the door seal or something.
No one was around. I looked under the truck and saw absolutely no one. There was no wind or bad weather, and no one else was around. I jumped in the truck and pulled out of there as fast as I could, then parked at a nearby truck stop.
I still can't explain it. I mean, I guess I can just imagine the sound, but the truck shaking was definitely real, so I don't know.
Paulthekid10-4
19. Just Saved Yourself
This happened to my dad. He used to leave for work at 5 am and drive for a few hours to work. One day, he felt compelled to stop for coffee.
He never did this before, and never did it since, since it’s a waste of time for him. But that one day, he happened to pass an accident that just happened.
He was convinced that the few minutes he took to get coffee were the few minutes that saved his life and had this unbelievable face.
Abyss_of_Dreams
20. DJ Saves the Day
I'm not a trucker, but I had a college teammate from Miami tell a story that he swears on to this day. He and his girlfriend were driving to Naples late at night on a two-lane road through the Everglades and had been in a line of cars behind an 18-wheeler for multiple miles.
She fell asleep, and he was surfing the radio for something to listen to. Only one station came in clearly enough to be tolerable, so he gave it a listen. The DJ came on and said something along the lines of, “The stars are extra bright in the Everglades tonight. If you’re driving through there, pull off and take a look.”
He said he normally wouldn’t even think of it, but for some reason, he felt compelled to that night. He wakes up his girlfriend. She is annoyed and doesn’t want to, but he convinces her it will be worth it.
They stopped and just took in the stars for 5-10 minutes. He said it was the most amazing sky he’s ever seen.
They return to the road, drive another few minutes, and come across a massive accident. The truck they were following had jackknifed and ran over a handful of vehicles that were following.
He said there were multiple fatalities, but I’ve never been able to find a new story about it to confirm (probably would have been in 2005 ish). They most likely would have been involved if not for that random DJ on the only radio station to come in that night.
Codeman12345
21. Day-Dreamer
I was driving a C&A pumper from the Hinton area to Red Deer, in the wee hours of the morn. Started to get tired, but “had to get that pumped back to the yard.”
Not far south of Drayton Valley (halfway time Alsike), just as the sun was coming up, I started hallucinating. I saw giant robots holding the mileage signs in the ditch.
I distinctly remember seeing the robot from the Beastie Boys' “Intergalactic” video holding a sign as I was coming around a bend in the highway.
The scary part is I remember thinking, “Holy hell! I’m asleep behind the wheel! No, Heims, you’re a reasonable, responsible dude; you wouldn’t be driving if you were tired. Just enjoy the dream.
HOLY hell! Heims, you were driving back to base, and YOU HAVE NOT GONE TO BED! You are driving while asleep!. Snapping out of it just as the traffic heading into Drayton to start their work day starts to pick up.
Well, it’s not a ghost story, but I had to share a story of disappointments myself with a fellow former oilfield worker, but it still scares me every time.
Heims30
22. Just a Normal Day
I'm not a truck driver but the story is from a truck driver. I was working the overnight shift from Friday night into Saturday morning at a gas station.
At about 6 am a semi pulls into the fuel aisle. The driver gets out and almost runs into the store clearly shaken. His face is completely white and he is obviously upset.
My first thought was that the poor man had hit someone on the road (we get a lot of drunks walking across a 4-lane highway in front of the store).
So I ask what's wrong. He looks at me for a second and is like, "I'm not crazy." Now I think that I'm here all alone and that this guy is losing it.
I say, of course not. "I just saw something huge on the side of the road." "Like a deer or bear? We had a bear get in the dumpster last week."
"No bigger than a bear on its back legs." "Maybe a big person?" "It picked up a dead buck on the side of the road and carried it over its shoulder into the woods."
I can only stare at him; my brain cannot deal with this information this late in a shift. A local comes up to the counter to get his usual, and the guy tells him the story.
The local says, "That's the bigfoot that lives near the county line."
The truck driver and I are both looking at this guy like he has two heads. He has to be joking. This trucker pays for his fuel at record speed and leaves, never to be seen again. The local still insists it's bigfoot. I just don't go into the woods because I don't know.
The_Turtle_Moves_13
22. A UFO
As a crew guy of an off-road racing team in Baja California Mexico I got to test drive some rigs and trucks, so technically truck drivers.
We were driving down south along the Sea of Cortez with a buddy at night on this 4-hour dirt road to Gonzaga, which is pretty much in the middle of freaking nowhere in the desert.
We see the lights of a car behind coming down fast and now effectively tailing us, and the bastard had bar mount headlights on top or what seemed like it, which are super bright.
It’s normal (or was) that locals and gringos get wasted in the nearest (now former due covid) spring breaker town and then go down this road super fast to “test” their rigs since there’s no police there.
So I tried waving him off to get the guy to keep the lights low since he was blinding us, but he wasn't slowing down a bit nor turning his roof lights off, and it was a dangerous, super dark road.
Finally, near a curve near the shore, I found a spot to bail off the road without crashing, and we saw lights passing by us super fast and going straight to the curve, and we were like, “that’s it, he is going to crash down to the sea.”
But the lights didn’t fall and kept going straight into the beach and the sea and then pitched up abruptly to the night sky and disappeared.
We didn’t say a word for a minute or so, and then my buddy went, “Did you see it?” and I said, “The freaking flying truck?” I didn't talk about it anymore as it simply didn't make sense to talk about it with anyone else when we arrived.
deleted
24. Angel on your Shoulder
A contractor, I’m in one of those big box trucks. Anyways, I finished a long delivery day, and I swear to whatever freaking gods you believe in that I was hearing voices in my cab.
It wasn’t the radio, it wasn’t my tinnitus, it wasn’t my subconscious, I was hearing whispered voices in my right ear that were coming from the passenger seat.
The voices continued even after I had gotten back to my hub, clocked out, and hopped in my own car to go home. They only stopped when I left the parking lot.
It only happened that night. I still have no freaking idea what the hell it was because I had ruled everything else out. Still creeps me out.
SirJudasIscariot
25. Cops to the Rescue
My family, as well as a couple of uncles and my oldest cousin, went on a trip from Mexico City to Acapulco when I was barely a year old.
Back home in the middle of the night (Ah, the good old days when you could travel at night), the car broke down, and a police car quickly came to our help.
There were three policemen in the car, and the chief offered to take my dad to the nearest gas station, where he could find a mechanic, and told the other two officers to stay in our car.
My dad says they seemed absolutely not pleased with the order until the chief told them, "Don't worry, there's a woman and two children." That seemed to calm the two officers.
Driving to the gas station in the police car, my dad asked the chief what was all that about. The chief told him that there had been many accidents in that part of the road (that's why they were able to find our car so quickly).
All of the accidents involved young men traveling without female or child company. Those who had survived said that they crashed because they could see a very beautiful woman next to the road.
But once they came close to her, she turned out to be just a rotting corpse staring at them, and they crashed because they were paralyzed by fear.
ThePeasantKingM
26. Midnight Desert
One of the worst was when I was parked at a dirt turnout in the Arizona desert between Cameron and Page for the night. This is out in Navajo, I believe.
At about 2 am, I woke up to scratching at the window of my Sleeper; I went on for about 15 minutes; I was sitting there in the dark, scared to death, wondering what the freaks happening with my Bowie Knife in my hand.
After it ended, I waited another 15 minutes or so before I opened my curtain and looked out the windows, I couldn't see anything outside, and I was still the only one parked there.
I got out the next morning, and all I found were footprints coming from the truck. I eventually walked back into the desert. Haven't parked there since, but I always stop at a small truck stop in Cameron now.
RebelActual
27. Just a Guide
Not me, but my mom told me a story about one late night out trucking. Her husband was sleeping in the back, and she was starting to get super tired, and struggling to stay awake.
She heard another trucker on the CB and started chatting with him. He helped her stay awake for the run until she stopped off at a truck stop until her husband could take over.
That next morning, she told her husband what happened, and he told her the CB was broken, and that was impossible, she still can’t believe it.
ShadowOrcSlayer
28. Freak of Nature
Not me, but an ex-girlfriend's cousin's uncle (Yeah, I know it's a friend of a friend situation, but it was a well-known tale among the family).
He was driving on a Mexican road at night. He felt a call of nature, so he parked on the sideway and jumped out of the truck. He walked to relieve himself and while doing that, he felt a presence beside him.
He pointed his flashlight at his side and saw a small, deformed person standing beside him. It was naked and had both its head and face bloated. He was standing just there.
The driver (ex-girl's cousin's uncle) ran away to his truck, jumped in, and drove away from there.
CharlyVazquez
29. Great Pranksters
I used to live in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and once a year, I’d make the drive up to the border to Renew my residential permit or whatever, I don’t remember.
Anyways, a lot of weird crap shows up on Mexican highways at night, from bridges that aren’t there to shadows that cross the highway in front of you.
One time, I got stopped at a checkpoint in Sinaloa, and my truck was inspected by soldiers who were in those tunnels that ran under the floor of your car.
Nothing happened, but imagine my surprise when I found out the Mexican army didn’t have an official checkpoint in that area.
PunMuffin909
30. Part of the Road
Not a truck driver, but years ago I was driving with my ex-girlfriend back from a wedding in northern Wisconsin heading towards Madison where she lived. We were probably like 20 or 30 miles away from the city at that point and it was probably around 1 am.
My GPS, which was some really cheap brand that my dad got me as a gift from Radio Shack, had me going through some backcountry highways for some reason after I had stopped for gas instead of getting me back on the expressway right away.
I didn't mind; I kind of always found those really peaceful, even though, at night, they are pretty creepy.
My girlfriend was asleep in the passenger seat, so I had turned down the music really quietly to not wake her, which added a bit to the eeriness of it all.
I'm really into this groove of driving, focused on the roads because it was so dark without street lights everywhere. Then, something on the side of the road catches my eye.
It was a giant mountain lion with what appeared to be blood all over its face.
I started shaking my girlfriend awake to get her to see it before it was gone, but she woke up too late. I pulled over to the side of the road and asked her to watch the rearview so she could see this huge thing cross the road, but it never did.
She was convinced that I imagined it all because that area of Wisconsin is not known for mountain lions, but I swear I saw it.
eDgAR
31. Tumble Rumble
I am not a truck driver, but one night, my friends and I were driving through a lightless valley around 1 AM. Suddenly my headlights catch on an object in the middle of the road, and, I crap you not, it’s a man made out of tumbleweed.
We don’t even have tumbleweed where I live. It appeared very suddenly, and I was so confused by its shape that I didn’t break or swerve.
As we collided with it, my friend and I in the front seat both screamed. But nothing. No impact. We drove right through it but it was just Air. Both of my friends in the backseat were very confused why the two of us in the front screamed suddenly.
Thefirecrest
32. Gotta Focus More
I was on a long haul, eastbound; nothing but me, the miles, and the night. On runs like this I fall into a zone with the hum of the tires and vibration of the road coaxing me into a rhythm, not noticing details along the way.
Illinois, Indiana, the long drag of Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The miles rolled on. Slowly, I realized something had changed. I was seeing lights.
The farther I went, the more there were. Suddenly, I jerked my attention to realize what was happening. Oh God, oh freak. I was in Philadelphia!
Pappyvanwinkle1111
33. Season 2 Coming Soon
Not a truck driver, but I was a field merchandiser so I’d drive all over to different grocery stores. One route was all Walmart’s in West Virginia.
In between Charlestown and Beckley, I decided to do no tolls since I had no cash/ coins on me. The views are amazing and I was just driving down these small roads mesmerized.
I stopped off the road next to a creek to get out and take some pics. It was in the middle of the afternoon, btw. As I’m looking up the stream, I see 3 tall (15 feet) white crosses on the other side.
This struck me as very strange and I instantly felt like I probably shouldn’t be outside of my vehicle. It gave me a strong true detective season 1 vibe.
As I’m processing, these two figures emerge from trees near the crosses. They were just a father and son and probably harmless, but I immediately “noped” right out of there and got in my car and pulled away.
Skerricho
34. Animal Encounter
Making the long drive back to our university one midnight, my friend and I both saw a freakishly huge dog or wolf-looking creature on the side of the road.
Eyes glowing and everything. It had been quiet in my truck before this, but we both saw it at the same time and yelled out. We don't live in an area with wolves, so I've often thought about it.
Our bet has always been some alpha dog or coyote that has grown huge in the woods or a bear that we both just mistook for a canine. Very much looked like a canine, though.
TheCarroll11
35. Mind Games
One night, he was doing a long run. He knew he wouldn't make it home that night, so when he saw an old-looking pub up ahead (Ireland), he decided to park up for the night at about 1.30 am and get himself a nice pint.
He went into the bar and thought everyone was dressed really old-fashioned and dancing. He thought nothing of it and got himself a Guinness, he still says to this day it was the nicest pint he's ever had in his entire life.
After he finished his pint, faces started to get fuzzy; he said it was like they were going out of focus. So he got back in the cab, pulled his curtains, and did his crosswords until he fell asleep.
The next morning, when he woke up, he was going to get some breakfast and a coffee from the pub before he started driving again.
He pulled his curtains and saw the pub from last night was derelict and boarded up, untouched for many years. He has no explanation for it, but he knows it wasn't a dream.
Pickledsnowpig.
36. Backed a Little Bit
Last week. I was in the middle of nowhere in northern Alabama, driving at night. Went over a small rise and saw something on the side of the road between me and the next little hill.
As I get closer, I realize it's kind of larger. So I edge myself slightly away from it in my lane in case it's a tree or something.
Turns out to be a homeless dude on the side of the road wearing some kind of tan trenchcoat and a really gaunt look in his eyes. Like, he wanted me to hit him. It was creepy.
Taco_Hurricane
37. Trust Her Guts
One time, I was driving a big truck full of mailers from Atlanta to NYC in February. In the middle of the night, at 2 am, we are in the middle of nowhere. We are cruising, and my girlfriend/ passenger suddenly sits up straight with a ‘pull over now!’
So I’m like, what? She’s like, now, pull over right now, so I do.
We sit there for a few minutes, and I’m all ‘wtf?’ and she’s like, “ I dunno, ok whatever, let’s just keep going. It was a feeling and intuition.”
So we pull back on the highway, crest the next hill, and before us is a huge accident with wheels still spinning on turned-over cars, smoke fire, it just happened, and no cops yet. We would have been in that many-car wreck for certain if we hadn’t pulled off.
Therealdougiep
38. They Thought You Were A Ghost
I'm not a truck driver, but I drive far for work sometimes. I once got a flat tire at 2 am on a really remote back road up a mountain about an hour's drive away from any houses or anything.
Without any reception or a jack to change the tire. Had to wait a half hour or so for a truck to go by, and I flagged them down with the light on my phone.
Asked if he had a jack I could use to change my tire, and he said “I got a jack, but you ain’t gettin it” and he drove away before I could even say anything.
Some time later someone stopped and helped. I genuinely thought I would die that day.
Otisty4
39. Nick of Time
I am not a truck driver, but a few years ago, I was driving back from Georgia to Arkansas. The trip usually means I cross into the northern part of Alabama, where I normally take a wee nap at this one rest area.
I take my nap, go pee, and get a Red Bull from the vending machine. I get back in my car at 1:30-2:am and start driving. The highway is completely deserted except for me. Found it weird but shrugged it off.
Next thing I know it's nearing 6 am and the sun's coming up. My gas tank was nearly empty (at the rest stop I had 3/4 a tank), and my odometer showed I'd driven 250 miles, but my GPS showed I was only about 10 miles from the rest area. I have no recollection of the time lost. Just poof, gone.
Pamplem0usse__
40. Myth, but On Point
There's this thing called the Black Dog; it shows up when people get greedy. When truckers or drivers in general have been driving for so long, haven't seen their family, etc,
This thing shows up to "take everything you've got." It shows up in the middle of the road, often on isolated and dark roads, typically when the person is close to falling asleep and they see it.
Swerve to avoid hitting it (since they think it's a dog or some sort of animal), and often end up in a fatal one-vehicle accident.
To anyone here who drives a lot, don't push your hours; the money isn't worth it. You see this dog, or whatever form it may take, you pull over immediately and rest. You get one warning, sometimes not even that.
If you ignore the first one, it'll get you the second time.
QueerD20
41. Not In The Mood
I'm a delivery driver for a florist. About two or three months ago, I had to deliver an arrangement about a 2-hour drive into the country from the city near the end of my shift.
When I arrived at the address, I didn't see any house but these old farming sheds and a really long dirt road. I get out of the truck, grab the arrangement, and walk down this dirt road.
Sun is pretty much about to disappear, and I've walked about 10 minutes and am questioning whether or not I should have braved driving the truck down.
I finally see this old shack with a light on, so I walk up to it. I'm about to go to the front door when I hear from around the side of the house, 'Just leave it.' I answer, 'Does ....... live here?'
'Just leave it by the door, it will eventually get to them.' I do so and walk as quickly as I can back to the truck, lock it, and drive away a bit quicker than normal.
JayPhrame
42. Just Like a Horror Film
I'm not a truck driver, but still traveling in the middle of nowhere story. Many years ago, we were driving back to Southern California from a cabin stay in Northern California.
There was a huge car accident on the freeway that was adding 4 hours to our drive. This was when tom toms were at their peak and started to come standard with traffic-avoiding redirections.
Anyways, the tomtom chimes up as the sun's going down and says it can save us 3 hours if we get off the freeway. Then, it proceeds to lead us through the moonless night on rural roads surrounded by corn fields.
I turn to my wife and say, "I've seen this movie before; keep your eyes open." A few minutes later, there's a van on the side of the road with its hazard lights on, and normally I would stop and help, but no way, not tonight, Satan.
For the next hour of driving, having no idea what was around us or where we were, it was one thing after another: broken-down cars with hazards on, having semis on either side of us, making us hold our breath so that they wouldn't force us to stop.
Too many of every horror film trope for a simple 1-hour detour.
Strider820
43. Just Like A Movie
I don't remember the town, other than it was near the Oklahoma-Kansas border, but we pulled into this town, and the place was deserted.
Most of the buildings and homes looked like they were less than 20 years old, including schools. It's still one of the creepiest things I have ever seen.
Later learned the town was host to a lead mine that structurally undermined the town, (the truck was under the posted weight limit) and the water supply was contaminated, which is the reason it was deserted, but still creepy.
DGwizkid
44. Good Decisions
I got stuck in between 2 remote towns in the middle of the mountains at night during winter. This was in northern BC in Canada.
It was about 10 pm at night and I couldn't make it up a hill in the snow. No cell phone reception and I'm out on the side of the road in pitch black using my cell phone as a light while I put the chains on.
Got them on and still couldn't get up the hill. Waited for a snow plow to drive by and followed him up the hill and still couldn't make it.
Finally, I had to give up and drive back into the town I had passed about 45 minutes back behind me and stay in a hotel. It felt creepy AF putting those chains on in the snow and pitch black.
I was so angry at my dispatch for even forcing me to return when they did, as I knew it would be tough in the snow. Things could have been so much worse than they ended up being.
ISingBecauseImHappy
45. Jeeper Creeper
When I was 22, I was a truck driver with my cousin. We drove a team as owner-operators. I drove nights, and he drove days. We stopped at this rest stop just entering New Mexico, maybe at 3 AM.
Some lady came up and asked me a bunch of random questions, and I figured she was a lizard or a serial killer.
My cousin noticed I was getting uncomfortable and called me over. As I was walking towards the truck, she was just staring at me.
I get on, and as I’m getting on, she smiles and says, “Not tonight, huh” I just take off. Here’s the creepy part, 3 days later, entering Tucson, we stop at a gas station and that which is there. I’m assuming she’s just a random girl, but it creeped me out.
guzman_hemi