Going out of your way to do a good deed!

A coworker just told me about his trip home after he got off work late yesterday. He was on the interstate after the sun went down and it was raining. Cars in front of him hit their brakes and swerved to the next lane over. He slowed down and started easing over to the next lane also. It was almost too late - he had to hit the brakes hard and swerve too. There was a truck pulling a small trailer loaded with brush. The truck was not visible until you got right up on it because all of the lights were blocked by the brush. Initially he passed it like the other cars and went on.

After looking back through the rear view mirror and seeing more cars in the distance approaching the truck, he slowed down, let the truck pass and get in front of him so he could follow the truck to keep it from causing an accident.

He was late getting home because the truck was driving slow.

I wonder how I woukd have felt if I had been one of the drivers that passed and just went on, then heard about an accident involving the truck on the news.

I wonder how many other people would go out of their way in a similar situation.

 

Kinda pointless of him to stay behind the truck until he got home. The truck keeps going anyway, so might as well not stay behind him if you don't go all the way.

I would have signaled the driver that something is wrong with his lights.

 

I'm confused on how following the truck helped prevent accidents.... either way, his intentions were good and that's what really matters. Any random or planned act of kindness is a good one, in my opinion. A group of friends and I used to have a "planned act of kindness day" once a month. We'd do things like take food to the homeless, get sidewalk chalk and write words of encouragement on public sidewalks, buy a bunch of flowers and hand them out to random people. I miss those days....

 

The way it sounded, he couldn't see the truck until he came up on it. The speed limit is 70 and he said the truck was going slow. He just stayed behind the truck because the lights on his car were on and kept others from rear-ending the truck.

I take a different road home, but he left work after me and visibility wasn't good when I left.

I agree with you about acts of kindness. Everybody wins.

 

I was thinking that myself. No one at work brought that up when he was telling the story. Maybe he didn't want any other interaction with the driver.

 

he's basically an enabler. the truck driver needs to learn not to drive a trailer with broken lights slowly down the highway at night.