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Truck jump, Gregg Godfrey

This is the story of the longest jump ever by a semi-truck

Semi-trucks were created to serve a single purpose — haul as much cargo as physically possible. Despite the fact that more could probably be fit into a semi-truck at times, the legal limit for gross vehicle weight is 80,000 pounds.

Long story short… these trucks were not made for stunts. Not even close.

But that didn’t stop Gregg Godfrey, a member of Nitro Circus, from attempting to pull off a huge stunt. That stunt was to jump a semi-truck as far as he could. Godfrey originally started with just a 50-foot jump before building his way up to a jaw-dropping 166 feet.

Gregg Godfrey’s family has a history of trucking

Godfrey’s decision to jump a semi-truck may seem random. But in fact, it wasn’t — it was far from random. What isn’t often mentioned is that Godfrey’s father was a long-haul trucker when he was born in Draper, Utah.

This is likely what inspired him to jump a semi-truck 166 feet. Godfrey himself admitted that he didn’t even intend on jumping as far as he did —he said he “meant to only go 140 feet.” Guess he got carried away and smashed the old record.

A video of the jump can be seen here:

One of the first replies to the video simply states “WTF who thinks this sh*t up.”

Godfrey did something that few will dare to attempt in the future. Jumping a semi-truck is seriously dangerous. This record has been held since 2015 and it seems unlikely that anybody will attempt it again anytime soon.

Semi-truck, Trucking

This Man Jumped on a Semi-truck and Traveled 100 Miles

Hitchhiking is one of the oldest forms of transportation around. Though it can be dangerous at times, there will always be pedestrians with their thumbs out on the side of the road looking to hitch a ride from a passerby. With luck, somebody will stop and let that person into their car and drop them off at the nearest possible location.

This is distinctly different than train hopping, where a person will jump onto an empty (or empty-ish) freight car and travel that way. This is unfortunately illegal, with obvious safety concerns being the issue.

For the first time in recorded history, somebody combined these two concepts. Okay — it might not be the first time this has been done, but it’s still an interesting story.

A man was arrested in Oklahoma for jumping onto a semi-truck and riding it 100 miles to a different state

Again, there are many options that somebody can choose to travel long distances without any existing form of transportation. Legal or illegal, the list is pretty long. This guy just added to it on his 100-mile trip from Wichita, Kansas to Logan County, Oklahoma.

Last Monday, a 30-year-old named Dustin Slocum decided to hop onto the back of a semi-truck and hope for the best. The truck traveled over 100 miles on the highway, receiving multiple 9-1-1 calls along the way. The calls were so ridiculous-sounding that police troopers didn’t believe it at first. Here’s what Eric Foster of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said.

“When you get a phone call like that, you’re like, oh, is that what they’re really seeing or is there something else going on?”

How did he do it? Apparently, it was extremely simple — he was just hanging from the back of the truck. The “joyride” came to a stop when other drivers on the road repeatedly waved the semi-truck driver down, which eventually prompted him to pull over. He was completely unaware that Slocum was clinging for dear life on the back of his vehicle.

CDL Trucking, Collapsed Bridge

A Collapsed Bridge Caused This Semi-Truck to Plunge Into a River

If it’s not already clear enough, there’s never a dull day in the trucking world. In the past couple of months, we’ve had a $100 million jewel heist at a truck stop, a driver smuggling wild animals, and a mysterious man throwing a bicycle under a semi-truck on the highway, to name a few. You guessed it — there’s another bizarre story in the news this week.

This time around, it involves a bridge collapse in Tretton that sent two people into a river in the early morning of August 15th.

Thankfully, everyone was okay. One of the victims of this bridge collapse was able to escape their car and swim to safety, while the truck driver required helicopter assistance. Both were safe.

What exactly transpired that led to this collapsed bridge?

Short answer — nobody knows.

In fact, this wasn’t even the first bridge to collapse in this area. According to the New York Post, another nearby bridge collapsed in 2016, injuring one truck driver. Both bridges were made of glued laminated timber (wood) and neither bridge was particularly old. After this, 11 bridges were closed and checked for safety before being re-opened. This included the bridge we’re speaking about in this article.

Still, the Tretton bridge collapsed, sending a regular vehicle into the water and leaving a semi-truck “nearly vertical” in the river. The bridge, which was built in 2012, was also checked in 2021, leaving many to wonder if these checks are effective at all. At some point, it becomes a big problem.

For now, that’s all the information we have.