Stalker nightmare on honeymoon highway
25th September, 2006
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Seen the movie Duel with Dennis Weaver? In it, a semi-trailer driver terrorises a motorist on a desert highway. I was reminded of it last weekend when I looked in my rear-view mirror while driving halfway between Brisbane and Coffs Harbour and saw that it was obscured by the grate from a stormwater drain. "Funny," I thought.
Seconds later, my sphincter snapped shut as the roar of an approaching train filled the passenger cabin. Baaaaaaarrrrrrrrp! I levitated several centimetres and if it hadn't been for the seatbelt, my head would have punched a hole in the car roof. The stormwater grate was actually the grille of a semi-trailer sitting half an axe handle from my rear bumper and doing 115km/h, and the train was the truck's air horn. I'd been passing another car when the truck appeared from nowhere and I moved aside to let the driver, doubtless drugged to the eyeballs on amphetamines, thunder past. A few kilometres further on, we came to a hill. Stuff you! I thought, and passed the truck. Its driver took this as a personal affront and, on the next downhill run, again parked in my mirror, its bull bar filling the reflection. This went on for the next hour. He'd terrorise me on the downhill sections and I'd pass him on the uphill bits. I could have surrendered but by now it had become a bloke thing, and I wasn't going to be bullied off the road. "Congratulations," said my wife. "You've managed to annoy a homicidal semi driver who will now run us off the road. They'll find us in six months' time at the bottom of a gully still strapped in our seats." While it is true that I have a talent for irritating people, in this case I was not at fault.
"The man's obviously mad," I said, gripping the steering wheel.
Finally, the Coffs Harbour turnoff loomed. "He'll keep going to Sydney," I said confidently and looked in horror in the rear-view mirror as the truck made the turn and came after me.
"What did you do to annoy him?" demanded my wife.
Whatever happened to the old two-fingered "up yours" or the more recent single-digit insult, usually extended by disturbingly unattractive females with bad skin and hair to match the ageing Hyundai Excels they almost invariably drive? I could easily handle those. No drive to work is complete without at least one brush with the great unwashed and if the roads could be swept clear of Hyundai Excels and utes, the world would be a better place. There are two words which, when uttered by me while driving, chill my wife's heart to the core, and they are "hang on!". This can mean that I have just badly misjudged my approach to a speed bump, we are about to spend the next few seconds airborne and that she should prepare for a heavy landing. Alternately, it indicates that the bend we have just entered is a little tighter than anticipated and she should prepare to experience cornering forces sufficiently severe to distort the shape of her face. "Hang on!" I yelled. "Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!" she cried as we accelerated like a space shuttle and the image of the truck in the rear-view mirror receded. I lost the semi along the turn-off, which was mercifully clear of police radar. "I was escaping from a crazed truck driver, officer. He was trying to ram us. Really, he was." Yes, I'm sure that would have worked. I might have eluded the evil truckie but I spent our entire honeymoon in Coffs Harbour expecting it to leap out of a sidestreet and chase me along the esplanade, black diesel smoke spewing from its exhaust stacks and air horn blaring. Every time I saw a semi, I'd have palpitations and dive into a shop.
"I'm impressed," said my wife. "Not everyone can irritate someone who's never seen him to the point where he wants to kill them with a semi-trailer."
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