Beyond The Hypothetical

In this day and age this scenario can become a reality. Say for example: You have a delivery appointment in a major metropolitan area. You make a turn and discover an active civil disturbance just ahead (rioting & looting). What do you do?

1) slow your speed and continue through the ruckus hoping they are smart enough to get out of the way

2) increase your speed through the mayhem disregarding everything in your path

3) stop and risk becoming the next Reginald Denny

3) stop and risk becoming the next Reginald Denny

If you sense something like that you better pull the brakes, grab anything you want to take with you, and run like h*ll. I'll tell you what I did one time:

I had an automatic transmission for US Xpress and I was pulling into a railyard in Downtown Chicago at 6:00 p.m. on a Friday in the winter. Snow is coming down lightly and it's already dark out. I start making the left, the engine suddenly revs, and the truck stops moving. Nothing would make it go. I was dead in the water blocking a busy two lane road at rush hour. Traffic instantly backed up as far as you could see in both directions and no one could maneuver around me. Everything came to a halt.

I immediately knew a bunch of people were going to be really ticked off and it was going to be a little while before the police and a wrecker could show up. So I wasn't taking any chances. I grabbed my wallet & keys, locked the door, and took off walking up the sidewalk without anyone noticing. People were already starting to get out of their cars wondering why my truck was stopped across the entire road. I spotted a few people talking so I went over and said, "Hey, what's this guy doing?" as I'm pointing at my own truck, pretending I'm just another dude stuck in traffic. After about 20 minutes of small talk with those people a cop finally pulled up and I went over and talked to him. Then a wrecker came in a few minutes later, moved me out of the way, and managed to fix a broken air line going to the transmission like 30 minutes later.

Chances are everything would've been fine but I wasn't taking any chances. All it takes is one nutcase that decides this was more than he could take after having a terrible day already. So I blended in with the crowd until the cops showed up.