The Camoflage Truck Incident (Another long story)

It's late afternoon in Northern Virginia and I'm enjoying a nice long late afternoon drive in my 2017 Slingshot SLR. I'm driving down a fairly well-maintained two-lane rural road at between 35 - 40 mph when, about 400 yards up ahead, I see a camouflage-painted truck pull up and come to a stop on an intersecting dirt road to the right of the paved road I'm on. The driver has plenty of time to pull out and go before I get there, but instead he's just sitting there at the intersection. "OK", I think to myself, "I guess he's just going to wait until I pass, then he'll go".

Now, if you’ve driven in Northern Virginia, you’ll know that it’s a bit of a euphemism to call the roads “roads”. They are much closer to what I would call “logging trails” than roads. As I get closer to where the camo-truck is waiting, I hit a big pothole in this logging trail. It's a strong jolt and I instinctively swear about the condition of the roads here and look in the mirror to see if I can spot the pothole I had hit. That small distraction almost caused a disaster.

"OH CRAP!!!" As I turn my attention back to the road ahead, I see that the truck driver, who, up until know has been waiting to make a right turn and go in the same direction I'm going, has decided to wait no longer. He has pulled right out in front of me. "SHIIIIIITTT!" I scream (luckily, I only say it. I don't do it) as I bury my clutch and brake pedals and feel my anti-lock brakes begin to pulse. I know they aren't going to be able to stop me in time. Fortunately, I have taken a defensive driving course, and I know just what to do in this situation. I steer to the right (the idea being that we're both moving, so by the time I get to where he is now, he'll be somewhere else).

That works, but not as well as it could have. The reason it could have gone better is that the driver of the truck has obviously not taken a defensive driving course (I rather doubt he has taken ANY type driving course. Ever. In his entire life). My guess is that he looked back and saw me bearing down on him and, instead of speeding up to get out of the way and create more distance between us, he slammed on his brakes too. I don't pretend to understand the flow of logic that lead him to that decision, but there it is. And it gets worse: after we were both stopped, the driver of the truck inexplicably hits the gas again, cuts his wheel to the right, and, squealing the rear tires loudly, plows directly into the ditch at the side of the road. I am stunned. I guess panic makes you do strange things.

So, due to a series of poor decisions (on his part), the two vehicles come VERY close to colliding (but thankfully do not make contact). My front driver's side fender passed disturbingly close his rear passenger's side bumper. And now he is in the ditch. All in all, I'm considering us fairly lucky, as it could have been much worse. We both get out to…. Well, I don’t know what we intended to do, but we both got out. This is when I first notice that the driver of the camo truck is not a "he" at all, but a "she".

There seemed to be no harm done to either vehicle. It would just be a matter of getting the truck out of the ditch. Nothing more than frayed nerves for both of us. We exchange "are you ok's?" then I go back and check the Slingshot. All is ok there, too. I come back around and I see that camo-truck lady is on the phone. I can hear her giving our location and I hear her saying that a guy had nearly "rear-ended" her. From her rather formal tone, I surmise that she's talking to the police. GREAT!!! That ends today’s drive! This will take forever. She hangs up and looks at me as if I'd just bitch-slapped her infant.

"Are they on their way?" I ask.

"Yeah. Should be just a few minutes", she responds curtly.

I'm tempted to address her claim that I am at fault by "nearly rear-ending" her, but I've tried my hand at arguing with women before. If you're one of the fortunate few who haven't tried, let me clue you in: Winning and argument with a women is sort of like trying to push a stick of butter up a cat's ass with a red-hot ice pick; it just doesn't work, for many reasons. Nope... I'm not doing it. I know that it's better to just wait for the police to show up and sort the situation out then.

Pretty soon the police arrive with lights flashing, but thankfully, no siren screaming. The cruiser pulls in on the shoulder ahead of us and out climbs State Highway Patrol Corporal C. Nevarong (pronounced like "Never Wrong", believe it or not, and I don't take this to be a good omen). Camo-truck lady takes the offensive and jumps right in.

"He almost rear-ended me..." she started, but Cpl Nevarong holds up a hand to stop her and she instantly goes silent.

"Are either of you hurt or in need of medical assistance?" he asks. We agree that we aren't. He collects our information and then spends a few minutes in his cruiser talking on the radio. When he returns, he walks over and surveys the truck’s situation more closely. "Are you two sure you want to involve the police? There’s no actual damage. Ma'am, I'm sure truck will be pretty easy to get out of the ditch. I doubt you'll even need to go to the car wash. You could just drive away and get this incident behind you".

"I'm sure" she says. "When my husband sees this he's gonna flip out! This truck is his baby. He just got the camo paint job done last month!"

"Ok, ok", Cpl Nevarong says, trying to keep her calm. "So tell me what happened".

[CONTINUED BELOW]

[CONTINUED]

And with that simple invitation, she was off: "I was pulling out and he just came flying up out of nowhere and almost slammed right [gasp!] into me! I had to drive into the ditch to get out of the way!" Her voice breaks slightly at the end as if she's about to start crying. I suspect this is a well-rehearsed ability for her.

"Not true", I counter. "I haven't been to 'Nowhere' since last year. I was actually coming from my house. And I'm a pilot, but I wasn't flying at the time. I was driving. She floored the gas pedal and drove the truck into the ditch AFTER we both had stopped. Finally, as you can see from the non-existent damage, no 'slamming' occurred."

She gives me that infant-slapper look again and says "You know what I mean"!

"No", I respond casually. "YOU know what you mean. I only know what you say. It's your job to make sure the two match."

I can see that Cpl Nevarong is now fighting a grin, and a strategy hatches in my mind. If I can get him laughing, he may side with me and I might come out on top of this thing without standing here forever. It just might work!!

"You almost slammed right into me!" she insists. "How could you not have seen this huge truck!?"

"'How could I not have seen it?!' It's painted CAMOUFLAGE! Now maybe I'm wrong but isn't the idea of camouflage that it's hard to see?"

"What? No! That's for deer, not people!"

"Deer can't drive!!" I’m not sure where, in my weird brain, that statement came from or what it meant, but I manage to keep a straight face as I say it.

I hear a stifled snort from Cpl Nevarong. I look over and he's looking towards his shoes, with his hand over his mouth not quite managing to conceal the smile on his face. My plan appears to be working.

Camo-truck lady looks as if her brain has just been reset. She isn't sure how to interpret the remark, but she tries her best. "No!", she squeals,"Not deer driving! It's so when you're in the woods hunting, the deer can't see it!"

I'm right on her, enjoying the confusion I'm causing. "So you're saying that you painted your truck camouflage so you can drive through the woods shooting deer and they won't see you?! That's just lazy! And it's unfair to the poor deer! They can't run as fast as the truck can go. Why don't you walk around in the woods to hunt like everyone else!?"

Another stifled snort from Cpl Nevarong.

"I DON'T DRIVE IT IN THE WOODS!! AND I DON'T SHOOT DEER EITHER!", she screeches. She's beginning to become unglued, but she somehow manages to pull herself together. She lets out a huge sigh and tries again in a forced, even tone. "My husband hunts. He parks the truck near the woods. And then he walks around hunting. The paint is so the deer don't see the truck and know he's there."

I instantly see her husband's strategy in getting her to allow him to spend the money to get the truck painted camouflage. He convinced her the deer would know he was after them if they saw his truck parked near the woods, but with this camouflage paint, they wouldn't see it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I don't really laugh, but I want to. Instead I decide to cause a little more trouble.

"Well, I think it's a waste of money." I tell her. "I see a hundred deer a year laying dead by the side of the road. Evidently they can't see vehicles regardless of what color they're painted. And the whole 'camouflage' thing is a crock anyway. Would it fool you? If a moose walks into your house wearing a sheet with a picture of a table and lamp on it, do you think there's a chance you might not notice him?"

"You do have a point there, sir", Cpl Nevarong chimes in.

"Really?" She says matter-of-factly (I suspect her poor husband will be hearing this point later tonight), then, to Cpl Nevarong: "Hey wait...why are you taking his side, he nearly rear-ended me!!"

"Ok, you two, I'm not taking sides", he says, "arguing with each other is not going to help. Ma'am, let's go up and talk in front of your truck. Sir, if you would, just wait here by your vehicle and I'll come and talk to you separately in a little while". I nod to him and they walk off to talk.

After a short while, he comes back to my Slingshot and I give him my side of the story. He's sympathetic, and he informs me that since I didn’t actually strike her vehicle, he won’t have to issue me a citation. He said that the lady had called her husband and he’s on his way to get the truck out. At that point, he started asking me questions about the Slingshot. All the usual questions were there: How much, how does it drive, is it fun, how fast does it go, etc… Cpl Nevarong finally has all his questions answered and is satisfied that all is well here. As I'm getting in the Slingshot, I realize that this little mishap has indeed cost me the remainder of my afternoon drive. I couldn’t complete the route I had planned and get back at a reasonable time. So I decide to go to the Dairy Queen and have some ice cream as a consolation prize. As I pull out past the camo truck, I see the lady sitting there with a smirk on her face. I guess she assumed that I got a ticket. I just smiled and waved as I drove by.

Several years ago there was a scam going on where people would see you waiting to pull out onto a road as they are coming towards you. They would put their blinker on and begin to slow down as if they are going to pull into the same road you are pulling out of. The trick is to get you to pull out into the roadway (thinking that they are turning in). When you do, they quickly turn off their blinker and t-bone you at a low speed. Then they get out of their vehicle holding their neck as if they have a neck injury. Of course they claim that they didn't have their blinker on and that they never intended to turn - you just pulled right out in front of them.

I suppose the scam has died down because there are so many cameras around now days. I'm always careful in this situation anyway.

Quote from Flybuddy

Good story and writing...it would be cool if we could get camo-lady on the forum to write her side of the story

I suspect it would just be a long string of OMG, like, totally, literally, My Husband, camo, REEEEEE!!!! RRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!