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Strange but True

Automotive Fleet has collected these “Strange but True” stories from fleet managers, drivers, and fleet management companies. Do you have a strange, but true story? Something so incredible it couldn’t have been made up? Share your stories with Automotive Fleet. E-mail: Lauren.Fletcher@bobit.com.

January 15, 2009
2 min to read


Snow Trouble
A driver was traveling to visit a customer about 500 miles north of Montreal. The road was slightly iced and as the driver crested a hill,  he encountered a huge moose standing in the middle of the road.
He tried braking, but slid into the snow on the border of the road. He was transporting about $2,000 worth of water treatment equipment in the back of the SUV. The equipment slammed through the rear window and landed in the 10-12-foot deep snow. The company never found the equipment, but the driver and the moose both made it through without injuries.

Stuck in the Snow
A fleet management company (FMC) received a phone call from a fleet manager one day asking for the color and plate number of a colleague’s company vehicle. All the manager said was his rep got stuck in the snow and the police were involved.

A few days later, the manager called again and said the employee was having transmission trouble. The FMC advised the manager to go through the maintenance program for repair. A day later, the maintenance call center contacted the FMC to inform staff the transmission was blown to bits.

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Apparently, one particular rep, in his third week on the job, decided to visit an account in a remote Oregon location in the dead of winter. Traveling from Seattle, he had to drive through Bear Pass, which was under repair. He took a detour and got lost, then spun out with the back end of the van hanging over a cliff. To get some traction, the rep repeatedly gunned the engine and eventually blew the transmission. He ended up spending the night in his van in the wilderness, hanging off a cliff with no cell phone coverage. Luckily, the rep was from Sweden and trained in wilderness survival. In the morning, he walked around the woods until he got a signal and called his wife, who called in the search and rescue squad.

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