My good friend Chuck Larson said we were deadheading.
“That’s what the big rig drivers call it when they are running with an empty trailer,” Chuck said as we climbed into his not-so-big rig. “It’s inefficient, but sometimes can’t be avoided.”
We were hitched up to an EZ Loader and heading north to pick up a little runabout Chuck had loaned to his nephew, who kept it at the dock of a summer rental cabin.
As conversation waned and the miles accumulated, Chuck’s use of the term deadheading had me humming in my head a familiar song—“I’d like to get some sleep before I travel, but if you got a warrant, I guess you’re gonna come in.” What a great line. The empty trailer had its own rhythm, bouncing over the tipped slabs of interstate pavement.
Suddenly that rhythm was lost, replaced by a chaotic crashing and loud thuds from abaft the truck. I glanced in the mirror and could see the trailer dancing wildly behind us. Chuck was gripping the wheel with two hands, eyes locked in the rearview. We were in the right lane of three, and Chuck began to brake, which raised the intensity of the clamor behind us, until it suddenly stopped. As Chuck eased onto the shoulder, I looked left and saw the trailer passing us, free at last to pursue its own destiny as it was scraping down the middle lane.
I swear I am not making this up.
I instinctively winced, waiting for a crash that seemed inevitable on this busy stretch of I-41, but traffic kept whizzing past the now-stationary trailer. We disembarked and stood on the fog line. We could dash out and quickly get this small trailer to the shoulder if only there were a break in the traffic, but the 70-mph upstream flow was steady and we were helpless. And then it was the driver of a real Big Rig that came to our rescue. Instead of changing out of the middle lane, the trucker hit his flashers, slowed and then stopped behind the trailer, blocking traffic in that lane and causing other traffic to slow down. It took us a moment to figure out what was happening, but when the light bulb went off we dashed out and had the trailer on the shoulder lickety-split. I gave that driver a big wave.
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A post-mortem revealed a bent latch on the hitch that, curiously, was in its unlatched position. Apparently, Chuck failed to latch the coupler hitch and also failed to use a coupler-latch pin to secure the coupler, which would have reminded him to latch it. The coupler eventually bounced off the ball.
But what about the safety chains, which should have intervened? I looked at the hooks and noticed the spring clips were missing. Chuck?
“Uh…I took those clips off,” Chuck shrugged. “They are always such a pain.”
Well, I dodged another bullet with Chuck. The back end of his truck was worse for wear, but this could have been a disaster. You can bet I’ll be double-checking my coupler latch and safety chains in the future, and I hope you will too.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it’s been.
