A Brisbane-based interstate truckie is urging other drivers travelling through Childers in regional Queensland to be on the lookout for a serial pest he says tried to kill him.
The driver, who preferred not to be named for fear of online trolling, told Big Rigs that a resident with a long-running vendetta against truckies disconnected his brake control line while he was paying for fuel for his K200 B-double at a nearby servo.
Their paths had crossed a week earlier when the truckie had been forced to use his engine brake to avoid a low-speed bingle with the man.
It wasn’t until the driver was more than 400km away on the outskirts of Rockhampton that he realised the angry motorist had sought his twisted payback by sabotaging his brakes.
There had been a motorist in the same car acting strangely at the bowsers but given the gap between their first encounter, the truckie hadn’t made the connection until it was too late.
“I’m on the other side of Rocky and I come over the top of the rise and there’s this stop-go that wasn’t there the day before,” said the driver, still rattled by the scare days later.
“Normally I need 50-100m to stop safely with the brakes fully functional, but I went to put my foot down and nothing is happening.
“I’m panicking, throwing it down gear after gear trying to get it to slow down and to stop with the little braking power I had left.
“Luckily, I pulled up a metre or two behind the back of a ute that was there. It scared the shit out of me, but it wasn’t until I got home later that night that I realised this guy just tried to kill me.”
The truckie said he hadn’t noticed the brakes malfunctioning earlier because he hadn’t needed to apply them in the same way, instead “coasting” up to any traffic he’d met on the way and applying his Jake Brake to slow down.
The driver called the police to report the incident but has since been told that there is lack of evidence to take it any further because the servo’s CCTV cameras don’t get a clear enough view of the truck’s brake line.
“At the moment the police have found that no one tampered with my truck but I know he did it and nothing will change my mind,” said the aggrieved truckie, who is adamant the motorist had been stalking the servo awaiting his chance to strike.
“He tried to kill me, and it’ll happen again unless he’s stopped.”
Concerned for the welfare of other drivers in the area, the truckie has also alerted followers of the popular Facebook group On The Pads Qld Edition which he says became inundated with similar stories before trolls forced him to take the post down.
“There has been lasers in truckies’ eyes, rocks through windscreens; this guy has been targeting truck drivers and attempting to harm, maim or kill,” he said.
“He tries to harm every truck driver who upsets him.”