John, I know it was a freak occurence from what the truck driver said, but it wouldn't hurt to paint your tailgate bright yellow with red or black 6 inch wide diagonal stripes and put some extra bright LED tail lights on it.
A bright, pulsating LED display in the back window wouldn't hurt, either.
Make the back of that thing look like the grand opening of a new barbeque joint.
BTW, the truck driver may have been lying... he could have been messing with his cell phone and just didn't want to admit it.