Confidence on slick roads for someone new to trucking.

The coefficient of traction on ice is ZERO!

 

I'd never thought of bringing up latent heat to explain why road conditions can vary so much when the road temp is at freezing, but it's a very good point. Minor changes in heat transfer from the road surface to the ground and air will easily result an iced over road in close proximity to a wet/mixed section.

That really depends on the ice.

Smooth ice, at 32F, where you get significant water films? Absolutely!

But drier, cold ice, especially if it has any texture, can have much better traction. Even cold black ice is far better, as there's less melt from tire heat as more of the tire's heat is used to warm the ice to freezing, resulting in less water film. That's not to say cold black ice isn't hazardous, it is, but compared to black ice near freezing, it's a night and day difference in traction level.

 

It always was my practice when I was still active to park when significant icing was forecast. I had several ways to see this, most notably was my weather radio. I was always just a wuss when it came to ice and thick fog. Back in the day just stayed parked. I was the capt of that ship and when I made that call to stay parked I stayed parked. I remember one of my last discussions with operations on this subject. FM called me and asked me what was my intentions. I said keep it on the QC. A strange thing that QC?? Once told to keep it on the QC operations always seemed to get religious! When you make that call to park stop communicating via cell if you have a QC AND keep the number to safety handy!

 

Sorry but what is QC ?.

 

Qualcomm. Operations tends to have a different attitude when there's proof of what they said.

 

QC

 

Sounds like you are doing just fine. I generally, don't drive my 4-wheeler in icy/snow. I have to drive thebtruck in those conditions, so I have more experience. I would happily ride a unicycle on ice in a swarm of bees if I was the only one on the road. Traffic is stupid and they cause accidents, the weather is a minor detail compared to idiots in cars.

 

Bad weather drivers, how do you keep from getting mesmerized by conditions?

Blowing snow, felt like I wasn’t moving here..

 

You just don't focus on it. Use all of the fixed markers you can to keep track of where you're at on the road. If visibility deteriorates to the point you lose those fixed markers, it's time to stop, as it's way too easy to lose track of your lane position in a whiteout. A brief loss, like passing thru the plume of someone going the other way, is manageable, anything longer than a couple seconds is asking for trouble.
It's not unusual in dry powder conditions to have significantly slow when you meet traffic and you're on the downwind side, especially on two lanes. There was one memorable time on a cold windless night that I had to run over a mile behind the truck in front of me to have visibility.

 

As a company driver I will not be spending the money on those much better tires.

My current truck does not have a trolley brake, so I am at a disadvantage there as well.
I have really missed that option in the past month or so.