Can't avoid jack-knifing? Don't be a truck driver

I think the OP makes more sense than some of the responses.............

 

Two things come to mind here....You should have been chained up or if the conditions were that bad, You should have been parked!
The difference between a good driver and a poor driver is knowing what to do and when to do it.

I agree 100%

Soooooooo......How much of a hurry were they in after they crashed?

I hear this B.S. all the time and I don't buy it! It's like these guys that get speeding tickets and then say that they were in a hurry...My answer is, "You'd have gotten there sooner of you would have done it right and not had to sit on the shoulder with a cop on your ###" Same thing holds true for the jacknifed fool..." How much of a hurry are you in now that you're wrecked and probably fired?"

You won't make any more money by driving too fast for conditions than you will by doing it right and keeping the ###### left door shut!

Keeping the door shut involves a lot less risk...

 

Well i don't know what who's right or wrong, but from experince:

: 01/25/10 I was E/B I-80 at MM 10 in IA just east of Omaha. It was about 9:30 in the morning, i had just pulled out from York, NE about 2 hours earlier in better conditions than the night before.

As i cross into IA I go from 45 to about 30 mph. I am following a car, (cant tell what kind) this person is constantly tapping there brakes so i give myself more space to stop, now im at least 1/8 mile behind it. A couple of SUVS have passed me . I figure if i just stay away from this car, Ill be alright, then i start seeing cars in the ditch all over the place. Now my thought is "lets park it". I go over a hill looking to find a safe exit ramp, and this car is now in front of me slidding all over the place. i take my foot of the gas, and as i do i'm sliding and i start to Jack Knife.

I cross over into the left lane, go through the ditch in the median and end up with the truck on its passenger side.I end up blocking W/B lanes with my cab in the middle and my trailer behind me. I Panic kick the windshield, once, twice and now the third time it pops out and i am out of the truck, by this time an off duty firefighter comes to my side and asks if i'm okk. I say im fine . I look past my truck and there is an RV stopped about 20 feet from my truck. When i got out the truck, I was in shock and aw, when i noticed my line of travel and were i ended up. I was very lucky no vehicles were w/b, otherwise i might no be here.

All I know is, go with your gut, if it might not be safe, it ISN'T. Believe in some type of god, if your a muslim, a jew, a hindu, a christian, a catholic, whatever, just beleive in some type of god because i do.

BTW i only bruised an arm, and had a sore shoulder.

 

You don't need to hurry if you do a trip plan. Time management is something people need to learn and use.

 

The problem is that alot of companies set the appointments with only the thought of dry roads, no traffic backups and 15 minutes for fuel.

 

Just recently several states and their respective DOT have begun taking the truckers side on "causation of accidents". Out here in the west, there are billboards warning 4 wheelers of the dangers of cutting off trucks, and "give em some space".

Not just MD, the 4 wheelers are driving like bovine feces everywhere now.

How the driver gets paid and how the driver deals with adversity have no correlation with each other.

Going to fast for conditions is far from the "reason for almost every accident", perhaps it is a mitigating factor in inclement weather accidents, but generalizing is a miscomprehended.

With this major storm...and all the forecast warnings posted well in advance of the storm...the conditions it created can not be construed as "out of control circumstances". Issues like a 4 wheeler blowing the red light at 60 mph would be something you have no control over...

The "quality" of the universities has no bearing on the "quality", or lack thereof with the students who choose journalism as a major course of study. The "mush head" isn't the university or it's curriculum...it's the head of mush that the university has accepted as a student.

You obviously have never worked in, been witness to, or dealt with surgical procedures. It is a very rare instance that any surgical instrument is sutured into the body in a surgical procedure. Retractors are actually somewhat a large instrument, the handle is generally hanging out of the cavity, gauze is inventoried before, during, and after the procedure. And it isn't hard to account for all the instruments and dressings used in the procedure...in fact for every 100 items, there is one nurse who accounts for the "in and out" of his/her specific group. Then when the procedure is in "close", the charge nurse re-inventories the entire package.

You been watching too many TV "reality" shows maybe.

 

But still there are driver's who waste time playing the truck stop arcade all day and then they run their butt off to make a load and then whine and moan about being forced to run illegal.

 

I've never jackknifed a truck, but I have spent an ungodly amount of time sitting in a jams caused by 4 wheelers wrecked, in snow, rain, and dry roads. I also think it's much easier to be a "journalist" of a liberal rag, than it is to drive a big truck.

 

This statement is very true...and if you really think about it...thanks to The Truckers' Trucking Forum...we are all journalists now!

We relate with each other through our typed voice, relate stories of the open road, answer technical questions from other "trucker journalists", offer advice on any given topic, (just like the media rags, we don't always know what we are talking about, just talking maybe), report road and weather warnings, and just like the small town newspaper, through this forum, we find out who is having a birthday, planning a wedding, buying a new pick-up truck for their hubby.

We have one big advantage to the drive-by media...we are truckers and we know it, and we have now become journalists, without paying $80,000.00 for the diploma on our wall...our diploma we carry in our wallet!

Type on big trucker...type on!

 

A member of the press asked Joe Namath if he majored in basketweaving...Joes reply, "no man, journalism, it was easier"..........LMAO