Not Sure What To Make Of It

I left Rio Rico, AZ a few hours ago with a load. I drove for about 3 hours and started to feel that heavy eye feeling. I decided to start looking for a place to park. I reached a TA, but the lot was full. Across the street is a dirt lot where several trucks were parked, so I decided to park there. As I pulled into the lot and along side another truck, a pickup truck pulled in behind me and stopped. I was expecting to see the pickup pull around me like they were using the lot for a turn around, but it just sat there. I went into the sleeper berth to organize things in preparation to get some rest. I came back to the front of the cab and checked my mirror. Pickup still sitting there. I decided to leave and find another place to park. As I pulled out of the lot, the pickup followed me. I called 911 to report what was happening in case they tried to do something. I stopped at a red light and the pickup pulled up along side me. The pickup turned right to enter the highway like they were not concerned about me at all. I drove about an hour in the opposite direction from the pickup (the direction I needed to go, anyway) to another place to park. I watched my mirrors with my focus on making sure I wasn't being followed. I got to the place where I am now parked without seeing the pickup again.

Be safe out there drivers.

Trucking companies, insurance companies, and even shippers will follow trucks sometimes. They may monitor your driving habits or where you're stopping or parking with a high-value load.

Obviously, this could have been some sort of criminal activity, but you wouldn't expect criminals to be so obvious in plain sight. Then again, if you're dumb enough to be a criminal in the first place, then who knows?

HELP!

The paranoids are after me!

Lol.

HELP!

The paranoids are after me!

Lol.

Better to be paranoid and utilize situational awareness than be a victim.

Was probably the unmarked left turn enforcement unit checking up on you. I know several times a week those guys will follow me for miles and turn into a station right behind me-so glad I have 911 on speed dial.

I forgot to mention that many lots will have security who patrol an area. Maybe a paper mill, for instance, has several local drop yards. They may have a security guard in their personal vehicle patrolling the lots at night to monitor any trailers going in and out.

Just a funny experience. I was at a shipping/receiving office early in my brief career and the clerk asked me for my trailer number. Having a senior moment, I hesitated to remember it.

The driver behind me said : “You should remember it, it’s been following you around all day”

People may give you a hard time, say you're being paranoid, but ignore them. We all have intuition, and if yours was going off, it's worth listening to. I get loads out of Rio Rico, and as we know, human smuggling and drugs across the border are a real thing. This most likely was just a weird coincidence, but you lost nothing by moving on, and gained some peace of mind.

People may give you a hard time, say you're being paranoid, but ignore them. We all have intuition, and if yours was going off, it's worth listening to. I get loads out of Rio Rico, and as we know, human smuggling and drugs across the border are a real thing. This most likely was just a weird coincidence, but you lost nothing by moving on, and gained some peace of mind.

Well said...

There is a detail that I forgot to mention in my initial post that I think helps explain why I reacted as I did.

The pickup truck was dented up and painted a matte black. The vehicle looked to be one that wanted to avoid having visual identifiers. The license plate was inside one of those smoke colored covers. It was definitely not a vehicle being driven by some sort of security.

I had a load last week coming out of ME that was pharmaceutical, so definitely a high value load. My current load is cucumbers and peppers, so I guarantee that no one concerned with the load arriving safely would be paying someone to follow me. I get that produce prices have been increasing, but I don't think cucumbers and peppers fall in the category of being a high value load.

I was being cautious, not paranoid. If I had been paranoid, I would have parked the truck and left it while I found somewhere else to stay. I drove to a truck stop about an hour away, parked, and stayed in the truck. That's a far cry from paranoia. I did take the time to check the back of the trailer for anything unusual. Because I had someone pull into a lot for truck parking and sit behind me, partially out of view.

If any of you experienced drivers had blown it off and just gone to sleep, then you are far too naive or refusing to publicly admit that you would have felt like something wasn't right about the situation.

Dispatch with my company told me that the person(s) in the truck was probably looking for an opportunity to do something and that I was smart to drive to another location.

Hey, if any of you want to lean hard into "nothing strange going on here" and "the world is perfectly normal," then you do you. I hope and pray that the moment never hits your lives to prove that the world can be a truly frightening and horrible place. Everything is fine and normal until it isn't.