The night before last, we were heading from Amarillo towards OK City on I-40. It was about 4 am and the roads were a little slippery since they had about an inch of snow. I was taking it easy since it was a little slick and making sure I kept a good distance between myself and the other trucks out there. Came up over a hill and on the other side, the road turned from a little slippery, to a sheet of ice -- it was a downhill curve. Needless to say, my trailer started to slide sideways. I couldn't tell you exactly what I did except to say that all I could think of was to let the jakes slow me down and keep my tractor in front of my trailer. My exclamation of "oh ****" woke up my co-driver and he jumped out of the bunk in time to see me come out of it. Once I got on solid ground, I pulled over where it was safe and started to shake. Co-driver said I did an excellent job keeping it on the road and he was very impressed. We proceeded carefully to a safe spot and took a break for a couple of hours until it was light. Roads were much better then. Quite a scary experience, but I was thankful that the Lord was obviously watching out for me and that whatever 'instincts' I had that took over were right in that case. Wasn't my first time on slippery roads, but definitely the first time on a skating rink. We passed lots of mutilated big trucks in the median yesterday -- all the way through Oklahoma. At least 8 or 9 twisted wrecks -- and there is nothing uglier than the bottom of a big rig. Just wanted to post this to remind everyone to be careful out there. It's not only the Northern states that have bad winter driving conditions. We've run into some of the worst ones this year in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. So, please remember that it is important to get the freight there on time, but they'd rather have the freight a little late than spread all over a freeway median somewhere.

Here in the Northeast the winter has been almost tropical until our first real snowfall two days ago. This is February! Wierd.

The road conditions in TX/OK, from what I see on the news, have been really bad for months. Is it normal to have so much ice on the roads out there?

i was always told to never use the jake brakes on snow or ice. the sudden slowdown from the jake can make you lose your trailer due to that sudden slowdown, much like if you slammed on the brakes. it was always told to me its as bad as having the cruise control on when there is snow and or ice on the roads. you may want to try keeping the jake brake off and using a light steady pressure on the brakes instead.

If you have a newer trailer - the kind with anti-lock brakes - would it be prudent to use the trailer brake only in such situations?
I'm saying pull the trailer brake down a little and let the ABS do their thing. No tractor brakes at all. Anyone know?

That is true! with a multi stage jake tho you can get some controlled slowing with the jakes on stage 2. I do it all the time with out disastrous results. But full jaking can produce problems.

__________________

Its worked for me. I can't say that it would do it ALL the time, but in theory it would.

There was this one time that if I would not have had anti locks on the trailer I would have piled it up bigger than ####.

__________________

no. no one can ever really master the feel of the hand brake. to depend on the trailer brakes alone with the ABS isn't prudent. you can and will have un-equally adjusted brakes, furthur, there is never any guarantee that the ABS sensors aren't covered in ice themselves. best to use the foot brake, as it was intended to be used, then let the entire ABS system do its job. you run the risk of locking up the trailer brakes, and/or, not getting the full advantage of ALL the brakes working.

Keelady I'm glad to hear that you and your co-driver made a safe stop. Als, thanks for giving the credit to Whom rightfully deserves it.