Pulled Over By a Firetruck
I once got pulled over by a firetruck.
It was Orlando, in August, 1990. It was close to 100 outside. I worked for a computer rental company. We would rent computers to companies in town for trade shows, or for a lot of other situations.
The “company van” was a ragged out Chrysler minivan with 180k miles on it. The A/C didn’t work so the windows were down. I was coming back to the office in heavy rush hour traffic. And I found myself in a right turn only lane and couldn’t get out in time.
So I was forced to make the right turn. I hit the gas to speed up and get in front of people making a left turn into my same direction. I had to get all the way over to the left side to make a U-Turn. So I cut off a firetruck to do it… one of the big squarish fire trucks with the flat front. I cut them off and got in the left turn lane to wait for the green arrow.
I looked out the window to my left and saw a Dixie Chopper lawnmower mowing the grass on the side of the road maybe 15ft from me. It was already hot. But this tremendous wave of heat came in through the driver’s side window. I thought, “Man, that’s a hot lawn mower.”
The light turned green and I started my U-turn. Half way through it, this cloud of (I thought) steam came out of the hood and covered the windshield so I couldn’t see. The power steering also failed. So I fought the car, trying to get back to the gas station at the corner so I could find a pay phone. (Yes, that’s how old I am.)
But because I couldn’t see, I missed the turn and ended up turning into an apartment complex. About this time, the cloud stopped and I could see again. Still no power steering. So I fought the car to do a U-Turn so I could get back to the gas station.
At this point, the firetruck I had cut off turned into the apartment complex, full lights, and blocked me in. Two huge firefighters got out of the truck holding fire extinguishers. “Excuse me sir, did you know your van was on fire?”
Turns out while I was cutting them off, I had been shooting flames out from under the passenger side of the van. They hit the lights, did a U-Turn, and came back to me. The wave of heat wasn’t from the lawn mower.
They checked out the van and let me go. The cause turned out to be a damaged power steering line. It sprayed power steering fluid all over the exhaust manifold and caught fire. Story credit: Reddit / CuttingEdgeRetro