CB HI

They may not want it on their record, but there have been several commercial truck dirvers that will risk it. I suppose they believe they are such great drivers that they can come close enough to a cyclist to scare them and force them off the road without a collision.

After a couple decades of truckers treating cyclist badly in Hawaii and causing enough collisions and a death, late 1990s thier insurance company(s) took notice and told the teamsters union local that if the Hawaii drivers did not put an end to it, the insurance company(s) would pull all commercial trucking insurance out of Hawaii. I noticed the drivers change in behaivior in less than a week, going from treating cyclist badly to yielding to cyclist even when they had the right of way and even giving a shaka.

For at least a decade, I did not have any problems with commercial truck drivers. In the last 10 years, I have only had a handful of problems. New drivers not paying attention to traing or old drivers that just did not care anymore, I guess.

One was a cement truck driver that intentionally forced me off the road. I caught him at a red light, entered the intersection just before the light turned green to make sure he saw me, looked back at his face and pointed to my helmet mounted camera. He gave me an entire lane when passing the second time, got well ahead of me and pulled into a bus turnout, got out and as I approached, he begged me not to report him to his company or insurance.

Another case was with a family trucking company. That owner started with one truck and as he could afford more trucks, would hire relatives to drive them. He ran the company from his home only a little over a mile from my home. One of his relatives driving a long semi dirt hauler passed me and started moving back into my lane before clear. I saw the last trailer tire in my mirror headed to kill me. I quickly bailed off the road with the trailer tire just inches from my left shoulder. I caught him at the back entry gate to Hickam Air Force Base as he was waiting to get inspected. I got video of his face and asked him to be more carfeful next time. He responded with a very bad word of what I should do with myself. So I e-mailed the owner with the details and offered the video and asked him to fix his driver. He also responded with a very bad word of what I should do with myself. I e-mailed him back noting I was a retired military Officer, that I would be contacting the military contracting Officer to send them the video and his e-mail exchange and that I would do the same with his insurance company. He responded by asking me not to report them and if I did, I would be a horrible person for causing his entire family to loose thier jobs and causing his kids to go hungary.