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1、 Hell on Wheels (2)With the speedometer dead, he estimated they were rolling 40 m.p.h. uphill, 50 on the flats. As he approached Exit 7, escape appeared impossible. The stream of traffic to the right was too thick to change lanes. With a stiff steering wheel and almost no brakes, the task was even h
2、arder.Yet when Eck suddenly saw a break in the right-lane traffic, he seized the chance. Throwing his whole body into it, he yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. The car veered into the lane, and Eck”s chest heaved with relief. But with a stab of terror, he watched the Peterbilt shift right,
3、 too, and felt it slam into him with bone-crunching force.Eck had lost count of the collisions in his confrontation with the truck. In a shrill voice tinged by desperation, he screamed at Brown over the phone line, “He hit me again.”Boxed in by the traffic, Ulrich finally reached the narrow left sho
4、ulder. With only inches of clearance between his car and the concrete barrier, he crawled north. The incident between the driver and trucker was now over 15 minutes in duration.With the Peterbilt”s front bumper now hard up against the Impala”s bumper, the trucker began to swerve, sweeping the car ba
5、ck and forth in front of it. Ahead on a steep hill, Eck saw another tractor-trailer moving slowly in the right lane. He could visualize what would happen next. The Peterbilt was pushing him toward the rear of the other truck. The gap between the two tractor-trailers and the powerless Impala was clos
6、ing fast.I”m going to die, Eck thought. He couldn”t let himself be crushed, but how could he escape？ He checked the rearview mirror there was traffic in the merge and right lanes, but the left lane was clear. Eck gripped the door handle. Before he hit that truck, he would pop the door and bail out.T
7、hen the sheer desperation of the idea seized him. If he survived hitting the road at 40 m.p.h., the Peterbilt might still run him over. But at least there was a chance he”d survive the nightmare. Staying in the car, Eck believed, was certain death.The truck ahead loomed larger. Eck”s fingers twitche
8、d on the door handle. Ten seconds, nine, eight Suddenly his attention was drawn to a flash of light speeding past on the right.Trooper Ulrich had broken free of the traffic and shot up the roadway. He saw the 18-wheeler, the Impala in front of it. Ulrich raced past and flagged the vehicles over to t
9、he side of the road. The truck braked and the Impala drifted to a stop. Ulrich got out of his patrol car. The idling truck”s engine growled like a beast struggling against its restraints.As he cautiously approached the Peterbilt, the trooper saw that the driver was a slight, stooped 65-year-old man
10、with thinning white hair. “What”s going on？” Ulrich demanded. James Trimble was shaking with rage. “This guy cut me off.” Then he added in a hot surge of anger, “So I hit his car to get him out of my way.”Ulrich later determined that Trimble had smashed and pushed Eck for 12 miles up I-83. This outb
11、urst of uncontrolled road rage lasted more than 20 minutes.Trimble was charged with two counts of aggravated assault and numerous driving offenses. The trucker pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault and six lesser charges, agreeing to undergo psychological evaluation and to surrender fore
12、ver his commercial driver”s license.Trimble declined Reader”s Digest”s request for an interview. But at his March 2022 sentencing, he claimed Eck repeatedly cut in front of him and slammed on his brakes as if intent on forcing him to hit him. He also said he called for assistance on his CB radio, an
13、d that he wasn”t aware Eck”s car was disabled. Trimble was sentenced to a prison term with a maximum of nearly two years.Despite the physical and psychological battering Michael Eck endured on I-83, he gave up his forklift job and now drives tractor-trailers. “I often see motorists driving in ways I consider inappropriate,” he says. “But I would never dream of taking vigilante justice, because I”ve relived the nightmare of what happened to me a thousand times.”
