I’m not a truck driver, and I’m not a safety manager at a trucking company so I can’t say I know what a typical safety meeting looks like. But I imagine when a driver is called into a safety manager’s office, more often than not, the offense they’re called in for is typically related to something like speeding or following too close or maybe running a stop sign.
I can’t imagine many drivers are confronted for something like, say, leaving a cab door open while walking around their truck.
Nevertheless, it is in fact a safety hazard.
Maybe you leave the door open to go check something on the trailer and another truck hits it while trying to back into the neighboring parking spot. Worse, maybe someone jumps in, driving off with your truck, trailer and cargo.
That’s more costly than losing a door.
The U.S. saw a 14% increase in cargo theft in the third quarter of 2024 year over year, with $39 million worth of goods stolen, according to new data from CargoNet. With the holiday shipping season underway, that number is likely to rise. While cargo thieves are a bit more sophisticated with their tactics these days with things like motor carrier (MC) number manipulation where they purchase older, previously vetted MC numbers to appear trustworthy, someone hopping in the cab and booking it down the road isn’t off the table.
But I’ve veered from the point of this otherwise funny – but also not so funny – story.
A trucker may think leaving their door open while doing something like performing a quick pre-trip inspection is harmless, never considering it could lead to an accident once the door is closed and they’re making their merry way down the road.
What they might not consider is that an open door invites wild critters in.
So, I was scrolling TikTok, and this guy pops up in my For You page talking about how he stopped at this gas station on his way home from work around 4 a.m. The attendant had a pest problem – and not bugs.
This 4 a.m. customer by the name of Spencer Lewis, according to his TikTok account, is decked out in camouflage. The attendant asks if he hunts. When the customer confirms, the attendant requests that the guy help him with his pest problem – a raccoon rumbling through the dumpster out back.
The attendant asks the customer to take care of the problem. This TikToker/customer is successful at scaring the raccoon away with a broom handle.
And he scares it into the cab of a diesel truck.
The driver – and the only other customer at this store at that hour – had left the driver door open while he attended to something on the passenger side. To be fair, it’s 4 a.m. Nobody else is around. This driver isn’t suspecting a bandit – much less a striped-tailed one – to climb into the cab of his truck.
This TikToker explains that this all happened so fast, that the animal had just scurried into the cab as the driver came around and hopped in, taking off down the road before he could attempt to flag him down.
Through the power of the internet, the TikToker found the driver of the truck.
First things first, the driver was marked safe from the beady-eyed bandit. While this is a funny, Over the Hedge-vibe story, it’s also a scary one. Things could have turned out very differently for this driver. A wild animal in the cab of a truck is definitely unsafe territory.
The driver told the TikToker that he made it a little way down the road before spotting a pair of glowing eyes in the passenger floorboard. It resulted in a tussle that ended with what I assume was a dead raccoon. The TikToker was unclear on that part, but it was insinuated.
This easily could have ended in an accident that could have left more dead than a raccoon.
Reading through some of the comments, a man who claimed to be a safety officer for a trucking company said the video had inspired him to have a safety meeting about why it’s important to close cab doors.
Maybe this will inspire other safety managers to warn drivers against two-legged and four-legged bandits this holiday season. Merry Christmas!
