To be completely honest, I give every other vehicle on the interstates as wide a berth as possible. In the mid-60s, when I was learning how to drive, I read a Popular Science article written by a State Trooper on how to stay alive while driving. He pointed out the tendency of traffic to bunch up in what he called "wolf packs" and how dangerous they are. He is absolutely right about that and it's always caused by idiots in all three or four lanes driving at the same speed abreast of each other. I avoid those like the plague. It was the first article I read about defensive driving and I've taken that to heart all the years I've been driving (zero accidents and I'm turning 70 soon).
I'm sure you were a safe and courteous driver as are most CDL drivers, but there is definitely a subset of impatient tailgating hotheads.
I also don't care for semi truck loads not properly secured or wheels not properly tightened. Logging trucks are the worst (those are baby logs in the first photo below):
I have heard of cases where the bunks on the logging truck broke and the logs rolled down on a car, killing the driver. I’m also someone who tries especially hard to stay far away from logging trucks.
I had a run-in with a logging truck about ten years ago, coming out of Montgomery, AL on 85 Northbound. Emergency service call for a network server that was hard down. Rush hour, major merge interchange. A shard of pine came off his trailer and hit the road; the car behind him hit it while it was still half-airborne and sent it back in the air. In what seemed like a few tenths of a second, I tapped my brakes when I saw this.....
harpoon coming directly at me. It was about eight feet long and as big around as my forearm. It speared my front bumper dead-on, then went over the top of my car. I had too much else on my mind at the time, but when I got to where I was going, I checked my bumper and there was six inches of the tip embedded in it. It speared me, broke off, and went God knows where after that. It didn't take too much thinking on the timing and physics of it to realize I came to within a whisker of getting impaled into my own driver's seat. That's when my heart started to race. Even my claim adjuster commented on how thin the line was between what
did happen and what
could have happened. To this day, I have an almost irrational phobia about driving behind any rig with an open trailer, I don't care what load they're carrying. I just jog left, hit the gas and go like hell until I see his front grille in my rearview mirror.
God's hand was on my shoulder that day.