… would you be dead or just incapacitated for a month or two?
I was talking with my sidekick at work about who I’d want to cover for me on a particular job if I got hit by a truck. It turns out he was assuming I’d be dead, whereas I always take that to mean just out of commission for a bit.
What’s your intention when you use that phrase?
Or are you too superstitious to ever use it? 
“Of course, I could walk out and be hit by a bus!”
I’ve always heard “bus” rather than "truck (not that it matters). It assumes you’d be dead.
“I’m saving a little now rather than buy that house, because I want to expand the business for a few years first. Of course, I could…”
It means all bets are off.
Well, my granpap was hit by a truck at 83, and lived for another five years after that. But then again, Granpap was darn nigh indestructible. For anyone else, I’d assume “dead”.
Back in the day, I’d say “If you won the lottery tomorrow”. Assumption was said person was not coming back to work. And a much more optimistic point of view.
always a bus. It means death.
Trucks, though, they are taller, so you might get rolled under and survive.
Yeah, Twicks, I use it to mean “Bye Bye”.
Of course, influenced because I used to print photos for the Sheriff’s Dept and coroner in small town MSPI, and did a few that were unlucky pedestrians getting hit by big trucks. No, you don’t want to know the details of that horrid roadkill. So, I see it as stepping out into the road and, Bam!, Sayonara.
But, I can see it to mean a different thing if you envision it as getting hit by a truck in your car, where you might stand a chance, and are just out of commission. Or, like my brother, hitting a truck at 100 mph on his motorcycle ( why,yes, it was TestosteroneFest that week!) and not only surviving, but getting his MBA on time three months later. So I know it can happen.
Good OP question!
I agree.
And it happens. Several years ago a work colleague did not come back from lunch one day. She’d been “hit by a bus”.
In thinking, I suppose there is some nuance here: Truck vs Bus. Truck, to me, implies a vehicle travelling faster, on a highway, so, not much of a chance of survival. Bus implies a more urban environment, but one with more pedestrians, stepping off the curb, so more likely to get hit by a bus.
I have lived in rural areas for the past couple of decades, am in the South, so use “I’d do yadda yadda blah blah, so we’re good, unless I’m hit by a truck.”
I vote for “dead.” To me, “hit by a truck (or bus)” is interchangeble with “pushing up daisies” or “buying the farm.” You’re not just pining for the Fjords, even if it’s a Fjord truck.
Dead, and I usually say “bus.”
I know someone who got hit by a bus. I’ve never heard the whole story, so I don’t know how badly injured he was, but I do know he has lots of pins in his legs. He’s still alive, though.
It means dead. I use truck. I also think of a semi on the interstate or loaded dump truck hitting you and leaving a smear.
I was hit by a truck once (pinches self.) I was in the hospital for just short of a week, though I had to use crutches for four months after that.
I use bus. And I’d take it to mean dead. Very dead.
Having been on a trolleybus (which is about the same size and weight as a standard bus) which hit two pedestrians, both of whom died, I couldn’t imagine using the phrase to mean ‘out of commission for a week or two’.
Always a bus, and always instantaneous death.
The neighbor had one of their holligan kids get run over by the others, when he fell out of the pickup truck bed and the rear tire went over him. The people at home in my family when it happened said it was a loud popping sound. He lived but was always messed up after that. He maybe the one that shot himself on their sandbar party spot, after getting aids from drug use.
If a truck runs over your head, best wear a bicycle helmet.
OP back here – wow, I’ve been misusing this all my life, I have always intended it to mean “discommoded.” Interesting.
And I actually use “bus” and “truck” pretty much interchangeably.
Thanks, all.
more like “discomoded”. As in gone the way of disco music. 
…pining for that glittering ball…