SHAKOPEE, Min. — Dan Hanson is a 52-year-old fleet manager at reefer specialists Q Carriers out of Shakopee, Minn., and last week, his mom Judy convinced him to do something he’d never done before.

She persuaded him to submit a story that he wrote to the local newspaper.

Hanson has always been a writer, journaling events that took place at work, but this particular story, his mom insisted, had to be shared with the world.

Obeying his mom, Hanson sent it to the op-ed editor and two days later, the story appeared and within hours, it was viral, and trucking industry types around the world were reading his prose, many of them welling up with tears of pride.

You might have seen the story.

It first appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It’s called "That truck driver you flipped off? Let me tell you his story," and it goes on to talk about one of Q’s drivers, Harold, whose sister had been killed in a car crash earlier in the week.

And it speaks volumes about the trucking industry and people’s seeming indifference toward the truck drivers of the world.

And while no "flipping off" ever took place, Hanson tells todaystrucking.com, everything else in the story is true.

With universal appeal it seems.

"It’s gone world wide. It’s even on a couple of different websites in the U.K," Hanson, who started in the trucking industry at 16, said.

He figures the reason for the story’s broad appeal is that it speaks to something we all experience; and that is, lack of compassion for other drivers.

And, writer says, Harold’s story really has its roots in what happened 10 years ago, on 9/11.

Hanson at the time was hauling heavy loads and remembers waiting to load a dozer and listening to radio, hearing the horrific tale of the 9-11 bombings.

"Then," he said, "right after that happened, I noticed a difference on the roads.

"People were driving differently. They were spreading out; and driving calmly, it was like a miracle."

Hanson said he remembers that traffic stayed that way – peaceful — for about two weeks. "But then it began to fade, and soon we were all back to normal.. aggressive.. again."

"We have to get back to where we were during those two weeks," Hanson said.

Harold, the driver from Georgia immortalized in the story, could be a role model for the rest of us, Hanson says.

"He’s just a guy in his 40s trying to feed his family and even when bad things happen he’s in a good mood, never wanting to bring anybody else down. My story is for all the Harold of the world."