Winter Driving w/o the platitudes.

My state starts spraying brine solution on the road 3 days before flurries are forecast to hit.

 

So, here's my contributions, whilst avoiding the platitudes:

You need to learn to really feel the truck through steering, throttle, and seat. Yeah, you might generally just think all those bumps and vibrations are "road noise", well, they're telling you a lot of what you need to know about driving in snow and ice.

If you're steering is feeling unspecific, lighter, and easier than it normally does chances are you're starting to get on some questionable terrain for your speed.

Same goes for the throttle and seat. These are largely telling you the traction your drives have. If, once again, they're feeling really light, you're not digging in much. You can feel the kind of snow you're going over through throttle resistance. Good snowpack that you can dig into a bit has a heavier foot feel and rougher ride than glaze or hard snowpack that has little traction.

Colder temps are better, and drier air is better. The colder and drier the air the less the snow melts off giving a slush or ice/ water mix. I much prefer a snowstorm at night than day.

Last, learn the chain for f*cks sake.

 

Yesterday, running from Billings to Butte on I-90 in the middle of a snow storm we had the doors blown off by a trucker that must have been thinking running at or above the speed limit was a constant.

We eventually passed him before getting on I-15 northbound. His trailer was sideways over the concrete divider, with his cab on the driver's side, blocking the hammer lane. From the looks of it he was trying to make a pass in the hammer lane in a right curve, when the hammer lane was covered in rutted ice and snow.

There are times to hammer down and times to bide your time. Some ######## never got the memo.

 

Pretty hard to feel sorry for some of these drivers, even if they maim themselves for life. But more likely, they walk away after killing some innocent people.
That stretch of 90 can be miserable with black ice.....

 

Winter driving will be here soon enough. This thread is a wealth of information, and certainly needs bumped. Great job, @Hammer166 .

 

Well, I don't know much about the science, but I agree with the driving by feel.

My first winter in a truck was also the first time I had ever driven on ice and snow. I didn't have a forum to learn from (that I knew about) my SWIFT mentor(s) never taught me, I didn't know how to throw chains, most people at my company would park it, and asking around got me the standard "go slow" response.

Well, I'm hard headed and I like money. I aint shutting down and if I can't drive in the white(snow/ice) and black(night), then I'm not meant to be a trucker. First time I hit snow, chain up in effect, Snoqualmie pass, god #### blizzard, about 0200, feet of snow every 30 minutes, plows not able to keep up. F.M.L.

Hit the chain station and pull out my nice new chains (when the chain law went up I checked the company provided chains and they were all rusted out, didn't trust them and told the company to let me buy new ones at the TA). Looked at them for a minute, laid them out, looked some more, watched someone else for a second, looked again and tried my best (hindsight they were probably too loose). Time to test my mettle.

Going up the grade eastbound, taking the only real advice about winter driving I've ever had, go slow. Other rigs blowing by me, even if I was full to gross I could have gone twice as fast. No snow yet, just patches of ice, not to bad, start getting a little braver. My speed increases, as does my awareness of the severity of these ice patches I keep hitting, each time I almost slide into a different lane. I know not to stop on ice going uphill, it's god #### common sense, well I'm stuck in this now... I'll make it or I won't.

The ice patches get worse, counterintuitively, I learn that I need to go even faster to make it over these ice patches without losing too much speed, if I stall or slow down too much I'm done for. I learn real fast when to let off and when to ease on, point my steers where I want to go an hang on. Death grip on the wheel and white knuckling the stick at this point.

So I make it past the Ice, round 1: QuietStorm wins. The problem is that the Ice has been replaced with snow, packed so a lot more traction, still too nervous to pick up the pace, snowing pretty regular now getting hard to see...

Ah, here it is, the god #### blizzard, visibility: about 2 truck lengths before not even tail lights. Soft slush on top of snowpack, melting by others who have gone over it and then refreezing. Well, I didn't really have a good life, but everyone has to die sometime right, just wish I was a little braver with that one girl from high school... *Chsssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Oh ####, I'm ####ing sliding, god #### daydreaming. Ease off, nope, ease on, nope, get all the off it, NOPE! ####, ease back on, uh oh, I can't see the back of my trailer in the mirrors anymore ease on it some more... More.... MORE... Okay back in line.... *chsshhh* off, on, off on... okay there we go, so that's how you do it, just a little feathering.

About 0400 hours (chaining took a while). It's getting really hard to see, I think I passed a summit sign, halfway there. I start to notice that my windshield is getting covered in Ice.. oh what the hell, I didn't change to winter washer fluid, the crap I've been using to get the snow off has been covering my windshield in ice (No i don't have a scraper, I'm a first year swifty, duh). Should I stop? Stop where? Off ramps and on ramps must be worse than this, probably won't make it out of there, keep going, only another hour max. Keep it around 25, basically plowing my own road at this point (I didn't know yet that you can just wait for a plow to come by and then just follow it).

Wait what is this? The the snow is letting up, but why do I keep getting faster.. oh I must be on the other side going down now. Almost pressed the brakes.. no, Don't do that, jakes on low. If i hit the brakes I might go sliding down this mountain, jakes will slow me down enough without changing the torque too much. Nice and easy, I can sew through a little section of windshield that hasn't frozen up yet, the snow is stopping, back to hard pack.

30 minutes later I'm at the bottom of the hill. By 0700 i pull into that old truckstop that is now owned by pilot. Immediately head to the bathroom to #### myself and start laughing uncontrollably for a good minute. A shower and a hot chocolate later I'm back in the rig to sleep it off and do it again the next day.

Didn't remember to take the chains off until that night during my pretrip, then threw them on again to get out of the iced up lot.

 

Jesus ####ing christ, that was not supposed to be that long. My first winter experience must have traumatized me cause I normally don't remember #### after a couple months, I'll never forget that though.

 

Good post, man. Yeah, the big one. What a memory, I'm sure. Sure should have you better prepared for this one, eh?

 

Eh, that was just the first. It sure had me prepared last year when Portland was frozen over and the 395 was shut down from flooding and I had to take grasshopper hill down to reno in the snow. But yeah, experience is the mother of confidence, if you don't get the experience your whole life will be ruled by the weather.

 

I'm an old geezer so gotta ask ? Lol.
What is a platitude ?
As far as training goes OP he'll yeah stand on it ! Find out what you have for traction where safe of course .
I got a lot of training when I was a kid on frozen lakes in Minnesota where ya hit the icy lake ..hammered the gas and cranked the wheel ...quickly figured the sliding wheel leads and more beer the better lol