Confidence on slick roads for someone new to trucking.

You can buy better tires. I run super-siped tires on my trucks and have zero issues with them. I have far better traction with them than the studded snow tires on my pickup. While air brakes are definitely a disadvantage over pickup brakes, the newer trucks with ABS and discs work pretty dang good in the cold. I run for months in super cold temps. I drag my trailer brakes every 10 miles or so on the open road to warm them up and clean out the snow. It's all in the technique. My trailer brakes work fine in the cold.

 

Weight distribution is also your friend.
Just like a bobtail, a pickup is going to be light on the drive axle unless you throw some bags of rock salt / sand / animal feed / potting soil / cement between the wheel wells.

@Flyingdriver you got the load there safely and got yourself home safely. That's the only thing that matters. Go as slow as you need to. You did well.

 

On the awd topic. I've seen way more people tits up in the ditch since awd is standard in most vehicles now. Same with the city slickers and their lifted pavement queen. "I have 4wd, hold my beer".


Studded snow tires

 

Go/No GO decisions are made by conditions not the vehicle and it's a serious mistake to think otherwise. I remember once being stuck on I 40 in Texas. Rain that turned into freezing rain then to snow. I knew better than to get out in that (redacted) and stayed put enjoyed some hot coffee and watched a movie while enjoying from a hotel room. The next morning as I drove east I seen all kinds of vehicles all over I 40 one or two were head ons into trees. I noticed several rigs being yanked out of the median and deep ruts where trucks had been. Far too many drivers develop getthereitus and then develop a serious case of the(redacted) and some even don't survive. The confidence comes for years of experience doing IT THE RIGHT WAY, not from getting on dangerous roads like some kind of road rambo! You can operate in the snow I have done it many times over the years. You CAN NOT operate on ice.

I will not attempt to explain latent heat here but know this, once enough latent heat is removed from the road surface to cause water to change state to ice the entire dynamics of the road change. Only a foolish driver pushes ahead when road conditions turn into what becomes black ice and you can't see it. yes, you can watch for spray coming off the tires but just 100 feet of elevation change can change water into ice. The best advice stay OFF ice-covered roads. Watch what other drivers are doing. Snow is OK provided you stay with the traffic flow, if you can't or don't feel up to it make that decision to get off the road.

 

Since when do they have trees along I-40 in Texas?

 

Tires are a huge part of it. When I first came to this country, back in ‘i3, I was invited along on an elk hunt in the back country in Idaho. The vehicle was an F150, two wheel drive. I vividly remember rolling along up a hill, passing a 4wd pickup spinning out and not being able to create enough traction to go up the hill. Good ole regular, narrow, all season highway tires vs wide “mud and snow”. Narrow is generally better, more pounds per square inch of contact.

I run dedicated snow tires on my POV, and Michelin xline energy’s on the truck. If you look them up, they have same tread as the dedicated Michelin snow tires, except they have a solid shoulder vs a siped shoulder on the snow tires. They do better in snow than any other tire I’ve used.

That said, safety on snow and ice is about the ability to control the vehicle at all times. People don’t realize that even though AWD vehicles can GO better, they can’t STOP any better. Some think AWD is magic, but all vehicles have All Wheel Brakes.

 

I am so new here that I don't even consider myself a newbie as I have not even started CDL school yet so this question is just to better understand. When the weather turns to crap how much pressure do drivers typically get to push on thru vs parking. As far as I understand it the driver has the final say but a company can easily find a way to push you out the door if they want so how do you guys deal with this issue or is it a non issue?

 

Tires and the various traction benefits of each is one of the most poorly understood aspects of winter driving.

So many guys preach lugs for bad weather traction, and don't realize that on anything hard-packed, a well-siped rib will provide vastly better traction. Of course it goes without saying that the lugs are vastly better on anything loose or soft.

I'm really limited on tire selection because of the little donuts we run for tires on carhaulers. Thankfully the XMD Michelins are a nice compromise drive. Closed shoulder lug with lots of siping on the lugs for good hard pack traction. I've been really impressed with how well they do. And as any of you who have read some of my other winter posts know, unless it's ice or zero visibility, I'm out there in it, so I'm well versed in traction limits.

 

I'm glad to hear that. Thanks!.