what could I have done differently?

On 12/26 I was in the Chicago area. Anyone else in the area on this morning knows they had an ice storm. I was scheduled on a load that picked up in Bollingbrook at 0300, and delivered that afternoon in Cleveland. I had accepted the preplan before I knew the weather report.

I got to the shipper without a problem. While I was dropping and hooking, everything froze. I left the shipper going about five mph. Once I was on the interstate, though, I was able to go about 20-25. Illinois had plenty of salt trucks out. The roads weren't in great shape, but they were driveable. My plan was to get out of the Chicago/Gary area, then pull off the road, take a nap, and let things melt.

I had the CB on, and all I was hearing was closures in IL. Nobody was talking about IN. I figured that IN must be in better shape than IL. Boy, was I wrong!

As soon as I crossed the border, the road was nothing but ice. I could see it. When you can see ice, you know it's thick. Apparently, IN doesn't believe in salt. Once I realized this, my only thought was to get the he!! off the road ASAP. Well, about a hundred other trucks had the same idea. The shoulder was full of trucks, parked one in front of the other. I was about a mile and a half into IN when I saw a gap. I put my turn signal on, slowed down even more till I was just barely moving, and tried to ease into the gap.

Well, as soon as I turned the wheel, my truck started sliding. I knew I wasn't past the truck I was trying to get in front of yet, but i couldn't think of a single thing I could do. My truck came to rest against the snowbank, and I looked in the mirror to see my trailer swing around and come to a stop. On the tractor behind me.

It did very little damage, just scratched his paint. I was going so slow at the time, the trailer had very little momentum. It still has me worried, though. With slow freight, a lot of companies are eliminating drivers on any excuse they can get, and my record wasn't perfect even before this. Not bad, but not perfect.

I'm wondering, though, if there was anything I could have done to prevent this. Of course I could have pulled off the road in IL, where the roads were in better shape, but I didn't know the condition of IN's roads until I was in IN. I could have kept going, but who knows what might have happened then. I might have gotten into even worse trouble. I've been second guessing myself on this since it happened, and I just don't see that I made a bad decision.

I know posting this I'll get all kinds of responses, so ler er rip! What do y'all think I should have done?

 

Danc, I definately keep my sense of humor! But I'm asking serious, too. Calling IN would have been a good idea.

Rocknroll, I generally don't talk on the CB, cause I'm female and I tend to get crap from some of the other drivers. Not all, certainly, there's a lot of gentlemen out here, but it happens often enough, I just shut up and listen. However, if it could have prevented this, it would have been worth a little crap talk.

 

I know it's preventable, that's why I'm worried about it. It will take a couple weeks for the company to review it and decide what to do with me.

I've tried to learn from all my mistakes. I love driving, and want to do it for a long long time, but I also want to do it well. All my stupid moves in the past, I can see what I did was stupid. This one was a bit harder to see where I went wrong, and that's why I'm here asking for advice. The consensus seems to be I should have gotten more info, and there's been some good suggestions on how to do that.

My new years resolution is to be accident free in 2009. With two and a half years big rig driving experience, I have no excuse not to be accident free.