Driving through winter conditions?

absolutely..and its far from the 1st time ive missed something, or been just plain wrong. i would defer to anyone with that many years experience almost every time.

 

Don't drive like the other idiot, or think there is safety driving in a pack.

Pretend there is a raw egg in a shell between your foot on the accelerator pedal, and brake pedal. You don't want to crack it.

Don't make any drastic, sudden moves of any sort, steering, acceleration, brakes. You'll have to drive in a manner that allows this.

This doesn't mean being the slowest person on the road, unless that is the only way you feel comfortable.

I try to keep away from other packs of vehicles, since I know I have better skills than they do. Sometimes I have to carefully pass to get away from them.

If you think the road may be icing up, you can CAREFULLY apply your trailer brakes using the t-handle, just a hair, and watch in the mirrors to see of the trailer tandems slide or the end drifts out a bit. CAREFULLY, just a hair, and not when other traffic is near.

I don't see the point in using flashers when you are moving and in limited visibility. I see 4 wheelers doing that in fog, at 10 mph, in the left lane, and they think they are 'safe'.

I've also see parked cars on the side of the road with flashers going, run into or nearly run into in times of limited visiblility...but somebody who was following MOVING vehicles with flashers on.

Like mentioned, there are times to get off the road, one time is when you don't think you can drive safely, the other is when you are not safe being on the same road with idiots.

I also park when it is not time efficient to be driving on an interstate, at 15 mph, when the conditions allow a higher speed, but the packs of vehicles blocking all the lanes, and doing 15 mph with flashers on, mean I can't make a reasonable amount of time. NOT speeding, but traveling at an appropriate speed for the conditions.

 

Like i said before, if i told my boss im parking it everytime i hit snow or bad weather id be out of a job. Continueing at a slower pace is better than making no money.

 

I slow down once I see cars facing backwards in the guard rail Most states up north and in the east do a good job of salting and plowing the roads. A few weeks ago I went through Kansas where it was raining really hard like an April shower then the temp dropped to 10 and it was pure ice. I probably counted over 20 cars in the ditch and two trucks stuck in the grass.

 

This is the most important point right here. If you're not comfortable being out there, park it. Appointments can be rescheduled. Your life can't.

 

Remember, your the captain of the ship, if you say you ain't going, then you ain't going. All you have to say is you don't feel safe to be out driving and you should be covered. One thing that I was taught in the oilfield is that if you are back roads in snowy/icy roads is that momentum is king, not helter skelter breakneck speeds but slower speeds. When you are going up and down hills and around corners and thru loops and whatnot momentum is your friend. I learned that real quick, you want to do what you can to keep forward tension on your trailer, helps a lot in keeping the trailer from kicking out on you, but you need to make sure that you aren't going to fast so it's a delicate situation, but that's what I was taught (which could be totally wrong and any vet can smack my pee pee if need be). The other trick I was taught was to stay in a higher gear than you normally would on those back roads, reason why? could not really tell you but it has worked for me in the past, once again though if I am completely wrong on that feel free to correct me.

 

If it's bad and the 4-wheelers are racing past better take it easy around the corners so you can avoid them after they have spun out and stopped in the middle of the road.

If it's bad and the rigs are flying past it's time to shut down for a bit.

 

i worried about that too. ive shut down due to weather by my own decision a few times (maybe 5-10 total in my career)...another handful due to closed roads. i have NEVER been questioned about telling them the truck is being shut down, or the load will be late. thing is, you want to become "the guy". the one thats always on time. the one thats always professional. the one that speaks to your dm/fm politely and professionally. when youve established yourself as dependable, your decisions are less likely to be called into question.

 

Summed it up pretty well here. I've never been given any kind of crap over it either. Just make sure you let someone know when you do shutdown for weather. The best thing you can do in those situations is give your company advanced notice on the situation so they can deal with things on their end. Really, that's true about any situation that you may be late. The earlier you let them know, the better.