don't know what to do

Toughen up young boy. Life happens. Always keep your following distance in inclimate weather. This will be a preventable on your record for not adjusting your distance. As far as trucking, you really picked the wrong career to have a sense of safety. If you were slowing down when that fool past you and crashed, you could have just got into the left lane and kept moving.

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Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Apparently you're lacking in reading comprehension skills.

 

He is the voice of experience, just look at his profile. People all react differently to this kind of stuff. I talked to guy at the terminal this morning who said he wasn't going out until sunrise because of the weather. He too was just in an accident recently. I went out at 0530 and did just fine. To each their own I say.

 

Lacking in reading comprehension skills? Really? I mean really? I read the OP's message about him being too scared to drive perfectly. I hope that little fail of an insult made you feel better about your joke of a life.

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As far as being the voice of experience, I am certainly not. I only have a year worth of experience. If anything, I'll be the one most likely to run people off cliffs.

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while i agree it was unnecessary to insult you, your post had the ring of insensitivity (at least). not to mention the "joke of a life" crack doesnt exactly give you a lane on the high road.
and your (1st) post also wasnt necessarily correct. did the truck pass him or not? how far past was he when he jackknifed? op may or may not have had the ability to slow down, and from the info given you definitely cannot determine that it was preventable. so your post was both unnecessarily cold and as likely to be wrong as right. perhaps that was why you got the response you did?

 

i am sorry you and your co went through this. i had similar experience years ago, with much better results. truck in right lane began to lose control with me essentially right next to him. i had very little experience, as you most likely do now. today i would never pass with conditions bad enough to scare me off of braking, but then..... so 2 things become apparent...one, i dont think hes gonna regain control, and two, my best option is to try to finish passing him as expeditiously as possible. didnt quite make it...front of his truck hit rear of my trailer. 1 mile or so down the road i come to a stop on the breakdown lane to inspect, and to exchange info. i had him in my rearviwe for a bit, but i was pretty shaken up and didnt pay enough attention to what he did. called safety and related story. other truck nowhere to be seen. called 911 to report, but another BIG accident on other side of loop, they say itll be awhile. upon inspection of my truck, i found a piece of fiberglass wedged above the trailer tandems...rather large piece from his tractor. hour later still no one there but me...called safety and reported i had no damage, that 911 had told me only 1 accident reported (on other side)..that i guessed the other truck bumping my trailer had saved him from the jackknife. they sent me on my way.

while i cant sympathize with your accident, i can certainly empathize based on this and the "what mightve beens" that floated around in my head for weeks afterward. i hope you can get past this, and learn a bit maybe. maybe there was absolutely nothing you couldve done. maybe if the weather was that bad you couldve slowed as he passed, keeping the time you were close together at a minimum. i dont know how you felt the roads were...so only you can figure out what, if anything, you couldve done to minimize your risk. but i can tell you that in 9 years, thats the only night i came close to having an accident (or having one, depending on how you look at it). you CAN be a safe driver, and the likelihood of you getting into that situation where you have few or no options is fairly small. if you try to anticipate them, you can make the likelihood practically infinitesimal. good luck to you.

 

i think it depends it there was contact on the drivers side first,

damage only to the front is not good and usually becomes a "no excuses" scenario just like 'hit from behind', regardless of charges