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Bad Luck Trucks

Do you ever get the feeling that some things in life just bring you bad luck - and there's nothing you can do about it? What about trucks? Can they be jinxed? FleetWatch correspondent Graeme Addison once owned such a vehicle which, by all accounts, had a mind and will of its own. Fleet owners may not be all that prone to believe in voodoo, but many drivers are. They believe there are devil vehicles, and routes and places where bad luck strikes repeatedly. In the following story, Addison describes his own experience of his relationship with a truck that seemed intent on wrecking havoc in his business. And just when he thought justice was done, the truck played its final card.

I had barked my knuckles crawling under the old Dyna and was massaging my hand when the salesman wandered across from his prefab office in the corner of the used truck lot.

"I wouldn't buy that one," he volunteered, "it's jinxed".

Of all the trucks standing in a sad row alongside the R28 highway approaching Krugersdorp, this one had caught my eye because it had the very frame at the back - welded to carry a tarp to protect adventure tourists from the Zululand sun - that I had commissioned to be built a few years earlier. This, in fact, was my old truck and I had good reason for stopping to crawl under her. I wanted to see if there were any signs that a rock had scoured the undercarriage from front to back, as my driver had alleged.

OK, I'm going to be honest with you. There was another reason. I wanted to say hello to it. Actually, I wanted to gloat over it and tell it that I, rather than it, had won. Well partly. You see, it had proved on more than one occasion that it had a mind of its own - a mind intent on breaking my former business. Let's go back a little in time.

A jumping rock

In the middle of a lonely dirt road between Weenen and Nkasini, approaching Tugela Ferry, my driver had collided head-on with a lorry belonging to the KwaZulu-Natal Roads Department. Both were going slowly on the rutted surface and there was not much damage to either vehicle - or so we thought at the time. However, six months later I received a writ for the cost of damage and repairs and the court case had dragged on interminably for two years.

Asked how he managed to prang when (a) the road was wide open and visibility good and (b) the other vehicle had swerved to avoid him, Doug, the driver, told me a rock had jumped in his way and he had to swerve into the path of the oncoming truck to avoid it.

"A rock jumped in your way," I repeated sarcastically. "That's a good one Doug. The magistrate will love that one. Along the Tugela the rocks are so agitated that they jump around on their own and land in the roads."

"Yes, Cap'n," he said, without a trace of humour, "at's what happened."

Doug always called me Captain because he mistakenly thought the skipper of an inflatable raft was known as the captain. I got my living in those years by running downriver through the rapids with paying passengers in what we called "rubber buses" - old chewed Avons and Metzelers that Noah might have been proud to own but had now become ancient curiosities.

"Well, Doug, the country doesn't need rocks like that. We've got enough other things that get thrown at us so I tell you what. I'm afraid I really can't give you a job any more. You're a great guy but this is costing me money now and no-one is going to believe us about rocks that jump."

That's it. No more hassles. However, the thought kept niggling at the back of my mind that I although I had got rid of the driver, I hadn't got rid of the problem. The Dyna was still there and I had this horrible feeling that it would be coming at me again.

More to the story

Alright, I know you're thinking I was overreacting to a concocted story of a driver trying to get off the hook. But no, there was more behind it than that…

On a previous occasion, Doug had driven out the gate of our rendezvous compound where our clients parked their cars and, with a full load of happy, expectant river-runners, headed off for the Tugela. He had done the trip many times before but on this occasion, the truck was on its way to the Drakensberg. When we finally found and caught up with the Dyna chugging along somewhere in the vicinity of Estcourt, I pulled Doug over and asked where on earth he thought he was going.

"To the Tugela Cap'n. Where else would I be going?"

When I pointed out he was heading towards the Drakensberg, he looked puzzled. "How'd I get here?" I didn't tell him my suspicions but I took a step back and looked sideways at that Dyna. "You did this," I mumbled as I turned back to my driver.

"Don't worry Doug. You probably forgot the route," I said out loud in the hope that my former happy clients - who by this time were all standing around looking extremely perplexed - would sympathise with Doug - and my company.

"No I didn't. I know the route." He wasn't co-operating. It was no use telling him what I was thinking. And it was certainly no use telling the clients either. After all, they were about to go on the river with a man who believed that a truck can manipulate for its own purposes.

But - back to the Krugersdorp highway. I never believed the story of the rock so when I spotted the weary Dyna with our Rivermen logo still faintly visible beneath a lick of enamel paint, I stopped to investigate (again) whether there was any sign that it had clouted a big, bad rock. Truth was, I could not tell because there were too many long scratches, dents in the fuel tank, bent rods, and hanging bits of ironmongery under there. This truck would stand forever unsold because the river business had wrecked it.

Justice had been done

I smiled. The fight was over. Justice had been done. After all, that truck had nearly wrecked my river outfit, several times - and it was not just in the incompetent hands of drivers that it would do it's own thing. Despite regular maintenance, it would always pick the worst moments to come to a grinding halt - leaving whole parties stranded in river valleys late on Sunday afternoons when everyone just wanted to get back to their cars and hare off for a Wimpy and coffee.

And it knew it was harming my business. On two occasions I had been forced to issue full refunds or free returns because lack of transport made everybody late for work next day. You can't make a profit like that. I was lucky only in the sense that my clients did not sue me for losing them business.

It was also obvious to me that this truck enjoyed the Tugela valley because on one occasion, all was going well when, again on a late Sunday afternoon just as the mother and father of all thunderstorms loomed over the Tugela valley, it stopped dead in its tracks. It was, however, just teasing us this time because just before the storm broke, it suddenly started again and took us all out of there to Mfongosi camp. But, it hadn't finished as there was another party we had to go back for. And sure enough, the Dyna did it again.

It waited in a weedgrown patch near the Jameson's Drift bridge idling away happily while the clients rushed off the river towards the Dyna to escape the pelting rain and lightning. Then, just as everyone was on board and we were ready to drive off, the engine died. What was worse, we discovered that someone had left the tarp behind at Mfongosi camp. I'm convinced that truck had something to do with hiding the tarp back at the camp.

As the heavens broke open with a terrifying display of electrical energy and darkening rage - like a vision of Dante's Hell with water for flames - our river rafters who had thoroughly enjoyed themselves in the rapids discovered there were more ways to get wet than just teasing the rivergods.

There was just nowhere to run to. Some crawled under the truck, others crowded into the cab and some just sat in the back on the metal benches hanging their heads and letting Wotan, the one-eyed god of fury and fire, hurl his spears at them. And yes, you guessed it, just as the last drops hit our battle weary faces, I turned the key and that engine started up again.

Evil influence

As I stood in that used truck yard, I chuckled at the memories and turned to the used truck salesman: "Where'd you get this piece of junk? I know this truck," I said.

"I'm not selling it, somebody left it here." He had given up trying to sell it on commission and had come to the conclusion that it should not be sold because it would exert an evil influence over the life of anyone who acquired it. He wanted it off the lot but could not trace the person who had left it there. "My sales are down," he said, "it's this damn Dyna."

Looking discreetly at the salesman's scuffed veldskoens and untidy shirt, I concluded that it was not the truck but he himself who was to blame for his hard luck in the marketplace. He certainly was not trying very hard to sell me a truck. But then I remembered: A cunning little voice in my head reminded me that I too believed there was something completely unlucky - some kind of voodoo or demon - lurking in the Dyna. Experience proved it, and any thoughts I might have had of buying it back for old times' sake were immediately banished.

Time may be a great healer but it's a lousy beautician and the more I looked at the Dyna, with its sagging headlight on the left and its battered driver's door which I myself had crushed against a tree while reversing, the more ugly it appeared. It was a shipwreck on the shore of my past existence and I didn't want it in my life again - but anyway, now that I had left the tourism game, what was I thinking, why would I ever need a truck like this again?

Turning my back on it to walk away I was suddenly struck by a thought that maybe it wasn't only the custom designed frame that had caused me to spot this malignant monster from the highway. Maybe - just maybe - hidden in its mechanical parts was a telepathic messaging system calling out to the truck's victims.

I tried to shake off this silly thought but in spite of myself, I stopped and looked back. The salesman was still watching me, looking at me looking at the truck and for a moment, his face lit up with the glad thought that I was about to relieve him of his burden. I was not.

Malevolence of the tokoloshe

Carefully studying the Dyna, I knew there was something odd about this vehicle. Perhaps it had worked in Zululand too long and had picked up the malevolence of the tokoloshe. It tormented fleet owners, drivers and salesmen alike.

I walked back to the salesman: "Let me see the licence papers for this one." We went into his office and he scratched around in a wooden tray that looked as dusty as the parking lot outside. He handed me a tattered document and AAARGH! There was my name as the owner.

I muttered a nasty curse upon my last Ops manager who had lied about disposing of the vehicle. He must have sold it outright and pocketed the money, which is why he disappeared and why I was receiving summonses for licence fees unpaid on a truck I believed was no longer mine. I had ignored the summonses and now I stood to be arrested.

It was the final nasty trick the Dyna intended to play on me. It was really this uncomfortable suspicion that had caused me to turn off the highway - although until that moment I had not consciously connected the Dyna, the Ops manager and the summonses in any meaningful sequence. I had thought it was all just a mistake. Now I knew I could really take the fall for an act of skinyvance perpetrated years before by a man I had never trusted in the first place. Or was it the Dyna? I glanced out into the yard at the old wreck. It seemed to be smiling.

I cleared my throat uncomfortably and explained the situation to the salesman, who now introduced himself - this is absolutely true - as Die Ware Piet ("Honest Pete"). He smirked and smelt money.

To cut a long story short, I emerged several hundred Rand poorer after paying him "site fees" and agreeing that he would go through the rigmarole of obtaining an official scrapping certificate, for which I duly signed a letter of authorisation.

Driving away, I could not feel relieved, partly because I was not sure whether to trust Honest Pete. However, the real reason for my concern was that the tokoloshe in the Dyna's tank might not be finished with me yet; and that at some time in the future it would plough through my life again playing havoc with my finances and peace of mind.

Pete heard from me every day for a week, eventually three times a day, until he faxed proof that the vehicle had really been officially written off and I was no longer responsible for it. It took further machinations with officialdom to get off the licence fines, and even more hassle to persuade the police that I really was no longer a wanted fugitive from the law. Through it all, the Dyna loomed in my nightmares like an unrelenting force that pinned me to the bed and held me down with a grinding of gears and a grim smile on its warped face.

Eventually I made up my mind to phone Pete and demanded that he physically scrap the vehicle, have it broken up, destroyed, cut in pieces, sold off and distributed part by part so that nowhere, never, ever again would it have its own identity and the power to do voodoo. But there was no reply to my calls, and when I drove around to find him, he was gone, liquidated, and all the trucks had disappeared.

You know what that means. The Dyna is still out there. Lock your doors, close your gates; it could be coming for you.

Related Articles :

• What's a Jinx?
• A Look at Bad Luck