North Van man
shatters myth
of good life

on the road

CLIFF THOMPSON is on
the road again. One can on-
ly wonder what surprises
await the 37-year-old North
Vancouver trucker.

By Surj Rattan
News Reporter

But if this trip is anything like
his last. Thompson will need a full
bottle of Tylenol and more to help
him deal with the headaches.

Thompson, who has been driv-
ing semi-trailer trucks for the past
12 years, left Friday on a trip that
will take him through Alberta,
Washington State, Oregon and
California to Los Angeles.

He’ll drop off his cargo in the
city of angels, pick up another
load and drive the same route
back to Vancouver.

Thompson says he was reluctant
to go because of the experience he
had along the same route on his
last trip. Whatever could have
gone wrong, did.

“It really started when I went
over the grape vine into north
L.A. county. My brake system
developed a leak in my tractor as
I started down a five-mile hill,’’
said Thompson. ‘After playing
with the RPMs and the air system,
I figured { might be able to make
it to the bottom without jack-
knifing and without going over
the side of the mountain I was on.

**The other truckers realized 1
had a problem and they knew
something very serious was going
on. I was too busy with my in-
strumentation to answer them on
the CB (citizen’s band radio).””

Thompson added that one of

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Sunday, January 27, 1991 - North Shore News - 33

IFESTYLES

ete ce en Ae AE RENN Ra Nt

trucker’s tale

"NEWS photo Nell L

NORTH VANCOUVER trucker Cliff Thompson says the life of a long distance trucker is a hard one.
if anyone should know, it’s Thompson.

the truckers organized the others
and they formed a cordon around
his rig to keep him away from the
other vehicles on the road, and he
was able to make it safely to the
bottom of the hill.

He said he then spent a day and
a half thinking about the event
and thinking about whether he
wanted to drive the truck back to
Vancouver. He decided he would.

But more trouble was to follow.

“After finishing in San Diego 1
had to go back to L.A. and pick
up an assorted load coming back
to Vancouver. 1 didn’t finish
loading until 8 p.m. and went

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back to the freeway,’’ said
Thompson. ‘‘The same thing that
happened to my brakes happened
again on the Long Beach Freeway.
The tires ended up smoking and I
came to a grinding halt on top of
an overpass.”"’

it was the start of a very long
night for Thompson.

He put flares and markers
around his truck and wrote a
message for help in the dirt that
covered the back of his rig. He
also called for help on the CB,
but the airwaves in L.A., he said,
are always filled with other
truckers. ,

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Thompson said four police cars
drove past him.

“At midnight I locked myself in
to go to sleep. Then 1 noticed
some headlights come up behind
me. I jumped out and it turned
out to be kids seeing if they could

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the truck,"* said
“They took off in a
then | found myself
locked out of my truck, at mid-
night, in) L.A. on a freeway
overpass with just a T-shirt on.”*

Thompson had to break open
the passenger window to get back
into the truck. After picking
pieces of shattered glass from his
scalp, Thompson went to bed.

“lL woke up at 9 a.m., and this
police officer comes to a
screeching halt. He asked what |
was doing and said I could not
park there. He said all I had to do
was call the police for help,’ said
Thompson. *‘! didn’t teli him
about the four police cars that
went by me.”"

A tow truck was called.

Thompson’s rig was repaired,
and he was soon on his way back
to Vancouver, driving along In-
terstate 5,

He managed to get out of
California and through Oregon,
but his troubles were far from
over.

“—n southern Washington State
I went through a small town and [
came up to a policeman sitting on
the highway, requesting that I pull
over. When I got up close to him
he told me to pull my semi across
the freeway. 1 asked him why and
he told me to shut up and just do
it.””

“‘He doesn’t say anything to me
and after 15 minutes, he pulled up
his spike belt off the freeway and
said 1 could go. Ten minutes later,
in the fog, I run over a tire tread.
Then |! heard on the CB that there
was fuel all over the freeway: |
See Trucker page 33

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Thompson.
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