Areas with a 'black crime problem' have been off-limits to rookie drivers for as long as I can remember; the Bronx is a time-honored example and Hunts Point there is one of the busiest docks in the country for box and reefer. It has also been one of the most dangerous for as long as I can remember. The criminals will jump up on your catwalk and disconnect your air and electric lines and you're not going anywhere. Every driver I knew that had a regular run there was armed to the teeth at all times. These riots just made things a whole lot worse but long-haul drivers are some of the least likely people in the country to be surprised over it because they've already seen it all.
Then we have older drivers and the true crime stories they tell to the young ones to give them a proper scare. (scared me anyway) There was a driver who stopped in Denver in the late 70s hauling swinging meat and his load never got delivered so the company checked out his last call-in and found him in his empty trailer, dead, hanging on a meat hook. Then there was a robber spraying ether into the sleeper vents of truckers parked to rest at Reno to knock them out good and if he could get into the truck, he robbed and killed them. The lot lizards were always bad news (truck stop prostitutes) not just for what they might do to you themselves but because there was usually a boyfriend or a whole gang waiting in the shadows for you to be stupid enough to unlock your door for one of them.
