Black ice or just wet?

when in doubt try spinning your drive tires, if you cant spin them and your are throwing spray,chances are you are good to go. i know people are going to say you will jack knife but if you do it easy and let off soon as the tach goes up you will be ok. b safe out there

 

Hand, I ain't gonna slam ya or what they call flame ya; but I respectfully disagree about intentionally slammin' on brakes just to see what will happen and doin everything you shouldn't - on purpose. I get you feel safe in the circumstance. I get you need to know the road and your rig, but you'd be slap @$$ed AMAZED at what goes wrong and when and to court it - well I think you are putting yourself in a very bad position. You'll have it happen when the time comes and the counter argument of: "how will I know if I don't play with it" I meet with; Training, Trust and just doing it IF it happens. Not begging for a wreck (even if it's only YOU)." Not being mean. Just IMHO.

Couple of points about doin that on a highway - no matter how safe:

The highway changes. The ice that wrecks usually isn't a solid ten mile sheet. By mile 2 on that stuff you know you are on the ice and have made the decision to either go on low and slow or wait. Goofing off slammin on brakes isn't gonna tell you anything you don't already know and puts the rig at BIG risk. You're on ice. You decided to go. Do the ice driving thing until it's CRYSTAL clear you ain't on ice no more. Or pull it over. You're choice.

The tricky stuff is the patchy stuff that appears in the eastern ranges. Beautiful road, no problem. You cross a county line (HINT,HINT they each have different ways and means so watch the road more closely anytime you see a county line sign) and it's all good til they ran out of something. Then they compromised by piece-mealing clearance.

"We good. looking good. No problem - WTF?! That's ICE. On the down side too? JERKS!! Salt the DOWN side if salt is short!!! Down is the hazard! @$$holes!!" LOL.

"OK Baby we got this; Little brake at the top before, little down shift. We still on good road. Gonna just coast across that $#!+ straight as a pin with no power, both feet on the floorboard, no steering maneuvers - WHAT? You did it in a CURVE (serious cussing - I'M moving to TN, running for office and I'm gonna FIRE me some DOT people - easy girl, gentle down and smooth over"), no brakes, no Jakes, just roll right over it cussing the whole way: "(STUPID Tennessee ((or Kentucky or whatever)) DOT)!!!!

LOL. Way of the road. No need to tempt fate. Fate will be there before you will and no amount of so called "practice" (other than a good skid pad at a training center - those are AWESOME if you ever get the chance jump on it) is gonna do anything but add ONE more time something can go wrong to the mix. Not being mean, not slammin' just MHO.

 

Give dad A big thanks for all the training.I wish I would have had that kind of mentor,and time with my dad.
Its not very common these days,and he will take better care of you than anyone else.
He got you this far

 

Animal,no problem but there are 2 things i want to point out to you.

1° in my post i did say WALKING PACE which means less then 5mph.
Not what i would call dangerous speeds.
I would never suggest you do that at higher speeds.
And it can be usefull for instance to see how your trailer reacts.

2°Simpe common sense ,like others have said, is the best way to avoid accidents

 

Being behind the wheel, you can "feel" the truck. The engine, the steers, the drives, the trailer, the load. You can't feel it riding shotgun. You have to be behind the wheel. You can feel when something's wrong. When you're on ice or hydro planing, you will occasionally feel the drives try to steer the rig ever so slightly. It's a huge shock to your nervous system, because you no longer feel in control if someone else is steering, right? First impulse is to go to defcon 4, counter steer and brake. Experience teaches you to hold her steady and maintain, and make the slightest correction. We do it all the time.

When the time comes where you feel the drives steering so much that you personally cannot run the MINIMUM POSTED SPEED as marked on the interstate, you need to park it. I'm not talking about what everyone else is doing, and how fast they are going...we all have different abilities. If road conditions are so bad that no one is running the minimum speed limit, you need to park.

If you could drive, you would be able to go the minimum posted limit SAFELY. No big #### contest needed, no need to count the hair follicles on your balls, plain and simple, that's how it goes. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH PARKING. It's a sign of wisdom to know when to say when.

Theres always a warning.

 

Amen to that! That's why I name my rigs and refer to them like I do a horse. It so similar in that you feel what's going on with everything. Both training and experience help you become one with it and intuitively get it to do what you want. Plus they each have their own "personalities". Quirks. Off days and purring like a kitten days like we do too. You learn them; they learn you. You take care of them and they take care of you. You do your best to work together to get each other from point A to point B without a bruise (or worse). Takes time holding the reins to get the feel though.

Good post

 

Black Ice??

If you see it, it isn't black ice.

Black Ice is something that forms quickly and without warning, it doesn't even have to be wet but humid enough to have the surface capture the moister and make a very thin transparent layer of ice, sometimes a mm thick.

You may not get a chance to see the warning signs other than spinning out cars and trucks jackknifing because it comes on suddenly and may disappear as fast.

 

Remember that when temps are close to freezing that it doesn't take much of a terrain change for temps to go from safe to dangerous, overpasses/ bridges. .. most of the time you don't know there is black ice till you feel it, DON'T panic, that's how most end up in the ditch, stay calm and stay off the brakes!

 

Tonight I went through a nice quick transition from manageable road to "time to park it" on I-10 headed eastbound from Houston toward Florida. The freeway was closed in Beaumont, TX (raised roadway) and it took a while to get back on the freeway with the detours. After that there weren't that many vehicles on the road in the evening and the road wasn't bad, just a few sections on bridges that were very manageable.

Then things started to change in a hurry just west of Crowley, LA. I had to back off the speed and had it down to 30 mph on the freeway, and even then it felt a tad bit squirrely. Then it dawned on me that I'm the ONLY vehicle as far as the eye could see. That's a clue...

... pulled off and parked it in one of the last spots at the Petro in Crowley. The parking lot was coated in about an inch of ice.

The transition from fairly dry road to thick ice was very quick. Fortunately I was "feather footing" it the entire time and keeping it nice and smooth with the steering wheel, so it really didn't create any issues for me. Unfortunately the cars in the ditch along the way must have been doing otherwise. In fact when I was about half a mile behind a car as it approached a bridge I saw it hit the brakes when it came to the ice.... just about the stupidest thing you could do... fortunately he/she was able to save it and kept driving.